Jokester
by FanFicBug
Summary: Johnny has a sister?  And she catches Mike's eye. A self important paper pusher and a barage of practical jokes around the station make Hank a crank and puts Chet in the dog house. A happy silly story meant to make you smile.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**; No offense is meant to any person, culture, religion etc..., I just write this stuff cause its fun. If you take offense to it let me know why, but sorry I am not going to rewrite unless its something very small, I will simply do my best to not make the same mistake a second time in this life, cause like I said if there is something offensive here its purely an 'honest mistake' and those things happen.

The characters of Emergency! are not mine, but there are original characters that ARE mine. If you like these Original Characters that I created and wish to use them in your fics, please don't kill them and please give me the credit for their creation.

I love feedback. If you dont know what to say then just say "Hi" or something so I know you were there. If I see people are interested then I am more likely to keep putting this up. I already finished this story so no worries, you will get the whole thing unless my computer goes wonky on me.

**NOTE:** This is an AU story that takes place sometime after the episode in which Johnny got bit by a rattlesnake. AND after the episode where Roy stayed at Johnny's apartment while Roy's house was being sprayed for bugs.

**Summary**; Someone at Station 51 is playing some pranks that are just popping up at the worst moments possible. Chet insists that he is NOT the one responsible. But is he? Meanwhile Johnny has company and he's really happy. Mike seems to have fallen in love at first sight, but can he have the girl? And a smug little paper pusher is making poor Hank lose his mind! Everything seems to be just ducky, but is it really? Or is something more happening than the guys are taking notice of? I hope you enjoy this, and love one character as much as I do, and hate another as badly as I do. Enjoy!

* * *

**JOKESTER**

Haze and smoke rose up in a column from the burning building and onlookers pointed and stared. They were both horrified and entertained by the disastor, and some of them were making a social spectacle of themselves. Seven engine companies with two squads worked to sort the chaos back into peace. Mike was working feverishly to keep the water pressure even. Hoses were crossed all over the night slick road, and even he'd lost track of which lines were feeding and which were dousing the blaze. Someone let out a scream. "LOOK OUT!"

Mike turned around in time to see a loose hose coming straight at him.

~)51(~

He gasped as he opened his eyes, and realized he was safe, home, in his own bed. The daylight was seeping through the blinds, making a rectangular white outline of the window. More light now came from a small lamp near the door. He'd woken when it had clicked on.

"Its just me, Mike," Johnny's voice called in friendly calm tones. He sat down on one side of Mike's bed and looked down at him, grinning. "How you feeling?"

"My arm hurts like a mother..."

"I bet by now it does," Johnny nodded and put his stethescope to his ears. "Let me get your vitals."

Mike held still and cooperated with the paramedic. He had been given a choice; go home with pain medication that would not do much, or stay in the hospital and enjoy being doped up. He had not liked either option and had asked if someone like a paramedic might be willing to look after him if he could go home with the good pain medication. Bracket had been willing to go along with this, and had released him when Johnny had gotten off duty two hours later.

Johnny now stared at a wall while he listened to Mike's chest and then very gently touched his left wrist to find the pulse there. It hurt and made Mike whimper helplessly. "Easy, Mike, just relax," Johnny soothed. Mike's arm was badly bruised and some muscles had been yanked. Nothing serious. "Try to move your fingers."

Mike moved his thumb a little and very nearly cried. "It hurts too much! I can't!"

Johnny's hand rested on his undamaged right arm, "Its a good sign though Mike."

"Yeah...but that doesn't mean I have to like it right now."

"You'll feel a lot better once this kicks in." Johnny produced a syringe and uncapped it before Mike's eyes.

He turned his head the other way and made a face of disgust as the needle sank into his right upper arm. Within a minute he was feeling the pain fade. "Oh! Thank you," he grinned his releif. "I mean that. You giving up yer day off to..."

"Oh hush!" Johnny laughed at him. "Who's really getting the benefits here? With you pretty much unconscious, I get to play with that big TV and that VCR and all those movies you got! And on top of that I get to sleep in a waterbed in a very posh guest room. You certainly know how to live! I mean I knew you had a nice place cause Marko said its great, but I didn't know you had a gorgeous hot pad like this! And you keep it so clean I keep thinking you must pay someone to do it."

Mike chuckled at the compliments. He wasn't about to tell Johnny that his mother kept the apartment clean for him.

"Hey, you mind if I have my sister visit?"

Mike lifted his brows. "I didn't know you had a sister!"

"Ah, things that don't come up in everyday conversation, you know." Johnny wasn't looking at him as he said this. "She's coming to bring me some things, but..." Johnny trailed off and looked at him directly, eyes hopefull. "I haven't seen her since Christmas."

Mike knew he was being evasive and didn't press the issue. Johnny probably had a good reason for not mentioning her before. Maybe she was not a pretty woman. Maybe she was an older bossy sister and she was fat and had too many kids. But family was just that, Mike thought, and if he had not seen her since Christmas and it was now May, no doubt he missed her. "Don't be afraid to be hospitable, man. Feed your guest all she wants, all right?"

Johnny patted Mike's good arm. "All right!"

"So what's your sister's name?"

Johnny met his eyes at this question and said a string of syllables that Mike didn't even comprehend. "That was very impressive pronunciation but the whole thing went in one ear and out my..."

"You can call her Nakee." Johnny laughed.

"Knocky." Mike repeated and couldn't help but to smile. It was a cute name and now he was picturing a cute little girl with big brown owl eyes, that squinted like Johnny's in bright light. He guessed that wasn't the case though. Johnny seemed to be a little nervous about something. Maybe it would be better to sleep and pretend he was too tired to come out and meet her. "I hope its all right if I'm not up to being sociable. I don't mean to be unfriendly. I just don't have the energy."

"Its okay, Mike," Johnny smiled and looked releived. "Rest for a little while. I'll be back in an hour to check and you. Maybe by then you could try to eat a little something."

"K," he spoke fuzzily and drifted. As the light clicked off, he felt like someone hit his brain's 'off' button.

~)51(~

Voices. Mike opened one eye partway and saw that the small TV on his dresser was on. The voices did not match the images though, and he realized it was not the televison that he was hearing. Two people were talking somewhere inside his apartment. They were too quiet for him to be able to make out any words, and their noise was not what had woken him. The soup that Johnny had given him to drink was looking for an exit. He squirmed, but wanted to just ignore the discomfort and turn over and go back to sleep. He liked to sleep on his left side though and could not do that with his injury. It was impossible to get comfortable on his right side or his back.

A voice from the other room caught his attention. It was a female voice, and she spoke just loud enough that he made out words that could not be english. Her voice was like music bubbling up out of clear water, rich and mellow. It was so soothing that he could have been lulled to sleep by it. Johnny speaking in turn broke the spell and reminded him the paramedic was here for a reason, and that he was not comfortable. One armed, he threw off the blankets and tried to sit up but the motion sent a jolt of white hot hell through his arm and made him gasp. Eyes wrenched shut, he willed himself to be still and wait for the pain to fade back down to the dull ache. "Hell," he breathed. He really didn't want to interupt if Johnny was having a good conversation with his sister. "JOHNNY?"

"ShA hawsa eya du enu kee, Enakowa." Johnny's voice spoke, and then yelled, "I'm coming, Mike!" He could then hear the distinct sound of bare feet walking over the linoleum of his hallway. As he entered the room, Mike smelled fresh soap and noticed his hair was wet. This made him wonder how long he'd slept. Johnny smiled sheepishly. "I hope we didn't wake you?"

"No." Mike said and really this was true. "I gotta go ..." he glanced at the door not wanting to say 'piss' loud enough for Johnny's company to hear. "I can't get up."

"Okay," Johnny eased him to sit upright and helped him get his feet to the floor. Mike nearly whined at the pain caused by moving. He could not help but to clutch onto Johnny's shirt while he gulped air and waited for the agony to pass. After a moment of just standing and breathing, the pain faded and he felt miraculously good despite the injury. He felt good enough to let go of the paramedic. "Let's get you down the hall." Johnny stayed close enough to catch him, but didn't hang onto him.

~)51(~

Mike straightened up from rinsing his mouth and wiped the shower steam off the mirror to pear at himself. He felt human again. It was no easy task getting cleaned up and half dressed with just one hand but the effort had been worth it. He looked a lot better and the hot water had done his arm a lot of good.

"You all right, Mike?" Johnny questioned from the other side of the unlatched door.

"Yeah, I'm all right." he opened the door and Johnny came in. The scents of fresh coffee and baking cookies and a tiny hint of vanilla and spice came drifting into the bathroom. "That smells really good. I hope I can have some coffee?"

"Sure, soon as I get you wrapped up again," Johnny guided him to sit down on the closed toilet and reached for a box full of gauze. "Hank's on his way here. He'll be glad to see you looking a lot better than you did last night. My sister is still here too." He cleared his throat and betrayed a nervous twitch of his head. "Uh...you wanna say hello to her?"

Mike pictured himself looking at a rather stout woman with Johnny's face. It would probably be polite to go so hello and then pretend he was extremely tired. Besides, he wanted some of cookies he could smell. "Yeah. Sure!" He hoped he didn't sound too disinterested.  
.

Mike was zippered into a hooded fleece jacket, arm tucked in securely and then he was sent off to his living room barefooted. According to Johnny he was more likely to be able to maintain balance without footwear. It was odd for him though. He hated to be barefoot, hated slippers, and owned at least four pair of sandles just for walking around the apartment. Down at the end of the long hallway was his living room and the television was on, playing an old program in black and white. Johnny's sister was there on the sofa, only her silhouette was visible against the bright window. He went onward, and prepared himself to see a very homely woman watching his television and thought about how he was going to smile and be nice no matter what. He could hear the laughter of an audience from the old sit-com. No matter how homely and chubby she was, he would be kind and accepting toward her, after all she was Johnny's sister and it would not be polite to make a face of disgust at her. His bare feet crossed over the tiled hall and then onto plush living room carpet. He kept a hand on the wall to keep himself stable.

As he entered the living room, the blinding light from the window made him cast his gaze downward. And he first saw a pair of thin dainty feet hanging off the sofa wearing brown sandals and the toenails were painted orange so the deep honey tones of her skin were emphasized. The calves were slender and smooth and her knees were covered by a flowery white fabric. Her belted midsection was thin and her arms were long and her graceful neck bore a thin necklace of pink beads. She was turned sidewise away from him, watching the television and he saw a mass of shimmering black hair tumbling to her waist almost fluid like. About half of it was sectioned off and braided. The woman laughed at the television and her voice was like a bubbling of orchestrated music. His eyes rested on the side of her face, and he took in the contour of her jaw and a tiny, sparkling silver tear drop earing.

Mike could not breathe, and he only kept moving because his feet were on automatic. Johnny spoke words from the kitchen that Mike just could not comprehend at all, but the woman turned to him and smiled as she got to her feet. She stood before him though and her smile faded and brown eyes sparkled up at him. He knew she had started to say something, but now, her obvious surprise made him wonder how awful he looked. A person in the television's sitcom declared, "Well, aren't you going to say something?" The audience laughed loudly. The girl's head twitched toward it and her eyes blinked. She looked back at Mike and chuckled. "You must be Mike." Her voice as rich and sweet as dark chocolate. "I...I'm...Nakee."

He wanted to speak, but his voice failed him entirely. He could only just stare at the dark eyed beauty before him, and yes she did look like Johnny. She looked 'a lot' like Johnny. But she was so beautiful he was afraid she couldn't possibly be real. All he could do was stare at her sparkling eyes and the high cheekbones and the rosebud lips. She walked forward to him, her delicate sandaled stride was silent and somehow reminded him of the grace of a butterfly, and the strength of a warrior. "Nakee..." He smiled stupidly and offered his hand.

"I...I'm glad to...meet you, Mike." She pushed his hand away and hugged him instead. It hurt his injured arm, and made him stiffen and gasp.

"Oh!" she backed away blushing. "Oh! I'm...sorry!"

"I'm okay, really..." he grinned through the shooting pain. The hug was worth the pain even if it had been far to short of one. He saw she was upset and felt stupid for having cried out like an infant and she was looking down and away from him, her hair slipping off her thin shoulders. She was just so—beautiful. And, she was close enough that he could hug her, with one arm and he couldn't beleive that he was reaching for her. "You can try again if you want, Nakee."

She lifted her head and the whites of her eyes flashed as she gave him a shy grin. She accepted his embrace, and he felt the silk of her hair as he pressed his palm on her back. She smelled like vanilla candy and something spicy that made him think of a candy shop at Halloween. But as soon as she giggled he got nervous and worried about putting his hand somewhere that would upset her—or make her brother angry.

She let go of him, and showed teeth that were crooked and somewhat too large for her mouth. It was somehow very charming though. "Come on, let me help you sit down."

"I'm...all right. I can..."

"Let me help you," she insisted, and half dragged him to the sofa with a firm strength that shocked him. She braced him expertly as she helped him to sit on the sofa, and put a lot of pillows behind him to support his weight.

Mike gaped at her. He couldn't think of anything to say as she tucked all the sofa cushions and throw pillows around him. He did not want her to think he was a geriatric case incapable of keeping his balance. "Ah, Nakee, I think that's enough pillows."

She stopped just as she reached for the cushions on the love seat and turned to look at him. Behind him and on either side were so many pillows that there was no room now for another person on the large sofa. "Oh!" she blushed and stopped in mid-pillow grab. "I...uh...guess you don't need that many."

He stared at her hands as they moved very quickly to put most of the cushions back where they went. Her hands were not dainty, but her fingers were long and they looked so soft and strong that he ached to hold one. What could he say to her? Nothing intelligent or polite came to mind. He wished Johnny would save him. He would rather go dive in a blast furnace than sit wondering what to say to a girl who was so beautiful that she stole his ability to think. She was at last done shoving pillows back where they belonged around his living room, and she sat down next to him, and seemed to be waiting for him to do something or say something. And what was she looking at? He gulped a lump, and hoped he didn't have any toothpaste on his nose or...oh no! What if there was a... He wiped his nose praying nothing gooey would come off on his hand.

The television audience laughed again. The real doorbell rang and Mike startled.

Johnny's voice sounded, and Nakee answered him, then got up and pulled open the door. "Oh! You're Captain Stanley aren't you?"

"Yes, that's me! And you must be, Miss Ga...! OOOOF!" Hank laughed as she hugged him warmly and put his arms around her back to pat her spine once or twice before they let go. He looked at her and now understood the stupid expression on Mike's face. "I had no idea that Johnny had a sister until you answered the phone! I certainly did not know he had a very lovely sister!"

"Thank you, Captain." She laughed beautifully and blushed, "You can call me Nakee."

Smiling, he patted her hand, "Only if you call me Hank, Miss Gage."

"Ok, Captain!"

"Enakowa semeeshee ahaw noo?" Johnny called from the kitchen. As Hank heard the unusual language from Gage his brows shot up.

"It's Captain Stanley," Nakee called back.

Johnny came trotting down the hall, a coffee tray rattling along as he carried it. He set it down on the table. "Cap! Come on in. You're just in time to have some coffee with us." He looked at his sister and motioned her to come and sit by him. She hesitated though. "Well! I guess Nakee already introduced herself?"

"She did!" Hank smiled broadly at the girl. He sat on the sofa next to Mike and grinned at his engineer as he cuffed him gently. "You look a lot better than I thought you would, there Mike. How're you feeling Pal?"

"I feel a lot better being home." He stared and smiled stupidly and watched Nakee smooth out the back of her dress as she sat down gracefully next to Johnny. "Sorry...I think the drugs are...messing me up a little."

Hank knew this response as bull, but pretended to accept it. He knew very well Mike was doped up on the girl's charm and her appetizing perfume more than anything else.

"Cap," Johnny pushed a cup of coffee toward him. Hank poured a good bit of cream in it and just a pinch of sugar and took a sip and exhaled as he groaned with pleasure, "Mmmmm!" he looked at Johnny, and complimented, "This is even better than usual."

"Thanks Captain," Nakee giggled at him.

Hank brow's went up at her. "You made this?"

"She did," Johnny chuckled.

"I did."

"You did?" Mike asked as he drank from his half full cup. "Cap we should hire her."

"You're hired," Hank joked and smiled broadly.

On the television a young teenage boy shouted, "Boy wait till my mom hears about this!" The audience cracked up and applauded.

Johnny picked up the remote control and clicked it off. Hank was impressed. "Remote control, Mike? You got the life, don't ya?"

"I figure I might as well spoil myself," Mike leaned forward to pour a little cream in the half cup of coffee Johnny put before him. He was glad it was only half. It would be easier to manage it in his unsteady state.

"You still kinda shaky there?" Hank sipped his coffee.

Mike shrugged. "I think...just...maybe. I'm out of it. If Johnny hadn't threatened to twist my other arm, I probably wouldn't have taken the effort to get out of bed let alone take a shower."

"Bet you're glad he made you though. I bet you feel a whole lot better."

"Much."

The conversation faded away from Mike after a moment and he stared vacantly at his coffee. It was good. He watched Hank hold out his cup and Nakee poured more for him. There was a lot of conversation between the other three. Sometimes a question was asked of him and he would say yes or no or just shrug, and after a minute he wondered what had been asked of him, and then wondered if someone had asked him a question at all. He saw all three of them laugh but didn't know why or really care.

But then he saw Nakee smile at him and he realized he was laughing and stopped. He suddenly felt like a goofy dope under her sparkling gaze. He looked away and concentrated on not dropping the now empty cup. Nakee was sitting comfortably next to Johnny, hanging on some story that Hank was telling, nodding her head and laughing.

"Right Mike?" Hank asked as he swatted his knee to get his attention.

"Uh..." he looked at them all. "Huh?"

Nakee laughed and Johnny and Hank did as well. Mike now felt himself blushing. He'd been so caught up in his own thoughts that he hadn't been following the conversation. Still he knew he'd done something funny and guessed they were not laughing at his expense.

Hank looked at Johnny, "Is he all right?"

Johnny looked at his watch in response. "Bet his pain medicine is wearing off. And he's probably getting tired."

"I'm all right, Cap." Mike reported and set his coffee cup down, fearing if he tried to hold it anymore he'd drop it. Johnny was right about the pain medication. His arm was really starting to ache. The movement made him cringe.

Hank patted his knee. "I think I should go and let you get some rest."

"You can stay," Mike offered, hoping he would because he feared Johnny would leave him alone and uncomfortably silent with his angelic sister.

"I can't stay, Mike. I gotta get my kids." Hank squeezed his good arm. "I'll call you later?"

"Okay," Mike nodded vacantly.

Hank got to his feet, "Miss Gage, it was nice to meet you."

Nakee rose, and hugged him again. She could not help it. Something about him was just so fatherly and sweet and kind. She just knew he was a big softy who only pretended to be gruff. "It was good to meet you too, Captain."

As she let him go, Johnny accepted a slap to his shoulder. "Later, Cap."

Hank went to the door and just as he was shutting it behind, caught a glimpse of Nakee almost drooling in Mike's direction. He wanted to laugh. They were like a couple of junior high kids too shy to approach one another. "I'll see you at work tomorow John." When the door was shut, he did laugh to himself.

"I better go too," Nakee spoke softly to Johnny.

Johnny's bright expression faded to dissapointment, and he whined, "You just got here!"

Nakee smiled and got to her feet. "Yeah, five hours ago. Aunt Patty probably wants her car back, and I need to think about everything."

"Yeah, I'll bet." He hugged her and accepted the kiss to his cheek and returned one to her forehead.

Nakee looked down at Mike. "I'll see you again I hope, Mike?"

"Sure, anytime," he buzzed sleepily.

Her warm hand rested on his good his shoulder, and then it felt as if a butterfly touched his temple as she planted a kiss there. His heart banged like a drum and his mouth spread into a lopsided goofy smile. It occurred to him that he should ask her out. But he couldn't get his mouth to stop smiling for long enough to allow him to use his voice. Long after she'd gone and Johnny saw him back to bed, he could still sense the remnants of her vanilla perfume and her name lingered on his lips.

More To Come...


	2. Chapter 2

**JOKESTER**

~)51(~

Over a week later, Mike was on the road, heading back to work with a clean bill of health, and a fading bruise on his left arm. "A very speedy recover, I have to admit!" Doctor Bracket had said approvingly. "You do seem to be quite preoccupied though, Mike. Injuries like this can sometimes have some traumatic side effects."

"Nothing like that, Doc," Mike had reported truthfully. "Girl issue. Or rather a lack-of-a-girl issue."

"Oh?" The doctor had grinned and chuckled. "Maybe you should talk to Johnny. I bet he could fix you up with someone." Mike had rolled his eyes at the irony of that comment. It was Nakee, Johnny's sister that he was grousing over.

Mike turned into the parking lot and wished he had never met the girl. At the time he'd first met her, he had been doped up on morphine and in too much pain to really think clearly. He had spent all of twenty minutes with her and yet he could never forget the sound of her voice, the way she tipped her chin when she smiled, the cascading silk of her hair, and the rich velvety scent of her vanilla perfume. All he wanted was to see her again, to hear her voice, but it probably was not a good thing to want to be with her. After all, that was Johnny's sister. There were rules about dating your friend's sister. There were rules about dating co-worker's relatives. It was not disallowed, but it was badly frowned upon. He hoped that he would never see her again. It would be a very bad idea to pursue her. "I'll get over her...someday."

He nearly slammed on his brakes as he spotted Johnny and Nakee standing near the white land rover in the lot. The sight of her in a soft beige dress with her hair billowing about her shoulders in the breeze was enough to ignite an overwhelming need to be near her. He parked nervously and thought about waiting to get out until she was gone. If she got near him again and he smelled that appetizing perfume, he wasn't sure he'd be able to handle it. "Hey! Mike's back!" Johnny announced and Mike felt like he'd been betrayed somehow. Now he couldn't hide in his car. That would be rude. He got out slowly.

"Back on the job, I see!" Johnny smiled toothily.

"Yeah, I'm back." Mike shrugged though. "Kind of wish I would have moaned at the doctor for another shift off though."

"Yeah, I know how that is."

Mike now looked at the woman standing just to one side of Johnny, "Its still good to be back though." Now that he wasn't so badly drugged up he thought maybe Nakee would not look quite so beautiful as his drug fogged mind had perceived her to be when he had seen her a week ago. But the sunlight showed the chocolate highlights in her silky black hair and brought a glow into her diamond eyes. The beige of her dress emphasized her light honey colored skin. She grinned the same sort of toothy smile as her brother, but only much more beautifully.

"Hello Mike." Her voice was like a song.

"Hi." he managed and then felt stupid trying to think of something more to say. She was approaching him and he knew she was going to give him a hug. 'Oh no!' If she smelled like vanilla he thought he was going to pass out!

"How're you feeling?"

"Good." He gulped as she laughed and put her arms around him. She did not smell like vanilla this time. She smelled like something spicy and rich that reminded of the sort of bar restaurant that specialized in steaks. It took all of his will power to hug her back without whimpering because whatever that smell was made him hungry. His mind screamed at him to say something. The only thing that he could think of was to ask a cheesy question about her astrological sign. He stayed silent and berated his brain for turning stupid on him at a critical moment. He realized that he could see Johnny mouthing words to him. What was he saying? "Uh...I can't read lips man."

Johnny slapped his own forehead and made a sound of frustration. Nakee let go of Mike and looked from him to her brother, confused. Mike began to think one of them was expecting something of him and he was entirely missing what was going on. The longer he stood doing nothing the more he realized he was doing nothing while Nakee blinked at him as if waiting for something.

Johnny seemed to be having a fit holding back laughter as he shook his head and then asked, "Nakee, you wanna come in for a visit?"

"I would love too." Her eyes opened wide as if she was answering the question for Mike rather than Johnny. She walked to the back door of the station, with the two following.

Johnny hung back a few steps with Mike and looked him dead in the eyes. "Nakee, I bet someone will take you for a guided tour."

"I hope so!" She looked at Mike as she said this, and stopped two steps from the station's back door.

Mike opened it to shouts of hello from B-shift, the men were scattered around the Rec Room, lounging in chairs, or on the sofa with coffee cups in hand. "Hey! Look who's back!" A stocky blonde man shouted exuberantly.

"Mike! Hey! Hey! It's Mike!" A graying captain yelled out from amidst a scattered mound of paperwork at the table. The poor man looked a bit frantic, and too busy to be bothered with small talk.

"Hey guys!" Mike smiled at their exuberant greetings and moved aside and Nakee came in after him.

The six B-shift men all stopped at once as if time froze. Mel who was pouring himself coffee didn't realize it was flooding over the brim onto the counter.

"Wow!" The stocky blonde whispered.

"Who is the lady fair? O thou Sweet Maiden! I bid thee..."

"Shut up Spike!" A brown haired paramedic hooted.

"Hello gorgeous!"

Another man whistled.

Nakee laughed as she blushed at the attention and clutched onto Johnny's arm. Maybe no one else noticed any resemblance between Johnny and the girl, but Captain Moor saw it clearly. He also saw the look of protective irritation on Johnny's face and guessed this gorgeous visitor was his sister. "All a' you behave!" Moor hollered.

The room fell quiet, but the firemen all continued to stare at the lovely girl as if they were dogs staring at a steak.

"Making a mess there, Mel!" Johnny alerted as he shut the door.

Mel looked down at his coffee cup, overflowing all over the counter. With a gasp, he stopped pouring, then muttered to himself and leaned over to get a rag out of the sink. His ears turned red with embarrassment and he sent furtive looks at Nakee who was giggling and grinning.

A sharp whining and a yap came from the bay and Boot came skidding to a halt before Nakee, wagging so hard he could barely keep his balance.

"OH!" Nakee squealed delightedly and squatted down to greet the dog vigorously with both hands. "This is Boot?" she looked up at Johnny who nodded. "He's so adorable!"

Captain Moor took the initiative and stepped forward, "You want some coffee, Miss uh..."

She straightened up, Boot sat near her feet and moaned for more attention. Johnny rested one hand on his sister's shoulder and motioned at each man, introducing them, "This is Captain Moor, and those two on the couch are Spike Jones and Patrick Knight, paramedics. That's Mel at the sink, the engineer. And those two are Jim and our new guy Sam," Each man waved as his name was said and Nakee smiled and waved back to them. Johnny finished, "Guys, I would like you to meet, my sister, Enakowahanahai Gage." Johnny deliberately failed to mention his sister's nickname because he thought it would be fun to see how the men would fumble over it.

"Eee knock what?"

"The lady hath a name of intrigue!"

"Ha-ka noo higgle dee haney hoo ha?" Jim tried.

Johnny and Nakee were both giggling at the troubles the men were having. Patrick stood and called, "Well, uh...Ehaa...naheeewa...uhh...What was that name again?"

She laughed and finally decided to show them some mercy. "Call me Nakee."

"HI NAKEE!" All six of them shouted and Nakee laughed as she blushed, and then coaxed by the silly mood, she took a bow. The men all clapped.

"Have some coffee if you like." Captain moor offered and handed her a cup.

"Anything you like is yours." Jim more or less drooled.

Spike piped in, eyes flashing, "You can have me if-OW!" He glared at Captain Moor who'd slapped the back of his neck. Johnny just rolled his eyes.

"Thanks." Nakee took the cup from Moor and helped herself to the cream and sugar, but after a sip she tried more sugar and then made a face. "I'm very sorry to whichever one of you made this. It's horrible!" She dumped out her cup into the sink. The freckly red haired Mel turned pink around his ears again and looked mortified while everyone else laughed. Johnny looked ready to burst an organ as he tried to not laugh.

"Told you Mel just can't make coffee, Cap!" A man commented.

"Shush!" Moor grouched.

"Does anyone mind if I make a fresh pot?" Nakee didn't wait for an answer. She dumped the coffee pot out into the sink. There was a collective stunned silence and all their jaws dropped. One man laughed and then Spike answered, "Nope, don't mind at all."

"Who else is here for A-shift?" Johnny wondered.

"Just Hank and you two so far," Moor answered with a motion of his chin toward the locker room.

"I'm gonna go get changed," Johnny headed toward the bay. "You all right with these hooligans Nakee?"

"Sure, I'll be fine!"

"Hooligans?"

"Gage, we're hurt!" Patrick Knight whined.

Johnny ignored the comments and headed out of the Rec Room. Mike followed him through the bay, asking, "You sure she'll be all right with them guys?"

Johnny only turned and gave him a surprised look, "Yeah Mike, she'll be fine. Its them I'd worry about."

The locker room door opened and Hank stepped out in uniform, still pulling himself together, and as yet he was unshaved and looked rattled and annoyed. He saw Mike and half shouted out as a smile overshadowed his nervous scowl, "Mike! I didn't think you'd be back for another week! How's that arm, Pal?"

"Much better today, Cap." Mike smiled and looked in Johnny's direction with a bit of gratitude. "My speedy recovery had a lot to do with the fact that I was able to go home and actually sleep."

"I hear ya pal." Hank gripped Johnny's shoulder for an instant, showing unspoken gratitude. He let go of him to resume buttoning his shirt, but a ruckus of voices came from the Rec Room, and there came a horrible choked grunt of pain. Someone let out a very loud and humored, "OH! HO! HO!" The room burst into raucous laughter. Captain Moor could be heard yelling at them all to zip it, and growled, "Serves you right!"

Hank scowled. "What is going on in there?"

"My sister's here." Johnny said as if that explained everything. He shot a backwards glance at the Rec room.

Hank did a double take and motioned angrily at his two men, "What are you twits thinking? You left her alone in there with B-shift?"

Mike felt horrified and wondered if he should run back into the Rec room to save Nakee from the maniacs.

"Cap, its better than leaving her with 'our' shift!" Johnny half wailed this. His eyes sparkled with humor and he did not elaborate further. Before Hank could say anything else, Gage stepped around him into the locker room. Mike looked back uncertainly, hearing laughter and jeering and then Nakee's voice asking, "Are you okay, Mel?"

Hank scowled at this and gave Mike a shove toward the locker room. "I'll take care of it, Mike."

"But..." his soft reply was unheeded and Hank's long strides carried him across the bay. Mike sighed feeling that an opportunity to prove himself to Nakee had been lost. Forlorn, he went into the locker room.  
.

Nakee was horrified at the noises that the freckly Mel was making. He was bent over, gasping and holding his gut. She hadn't meant to punch him that hard. "Are you all right?" She rested one hand on his back to check his breathing. He was fine, she knew, but she still felt bad. "Come on, you had better sit down." She tried to help him to a chair, but he cringed away from her, hunched over, he scuffled his way to the sofa and sat down, ears bright red with embarrassment. The other guys were all laughing so hard they couldn't stop. "I did try to warn you now," Nakee reminded.

"What the devil is going on here?" Hank demanded as he entered. He took in the B-shift crew, and the hunched over Mel, the laughing men, and Nakee smiling as she walked toward him.

"Captain Stanley!" to the surprise and jealousy of the other men, she went straight to him and hugged him warmly and kissed his cheek.

"Good morning, Miss Gage!" his tone was jovial. "It's good to see you again."

He let her hang onto him on one side and kept one arm around her in a protective gesture, and asked again, looking at the still very humbled Mel. "Well, what happened?"

Spike answered, "Mel there was trying to hard to get a date as usual."

"Oh be quiet," Mel groaned, head down.

"And I did warn him at least twice." Nakee's tone was innocent as well as apologetic. "I am sorry Mel, I hope I didn't hurt you."

"It was my pleasure actually, Ma'am," Mel smirked and chuckled at himself as laughter circled the room.

Hank glared at the humbled engineer and might have thought up a few choice words, but the scent of the coffee wafted to his nose. "Miss Gage, is that your coffee I smell?"

"It is," she grinned. "I think the ranking Captain's prerogative might get you the first cup."

"Then I intend to exercise that prerogative!"

"Hey, no fair!" One of B-shift's men objected.

Captain Moor gave the man a glare as he got in line behind Hank, "You heard the lady! Captain's prerogative!"

More To Come...


	3. Chapter 3

**JOKESTER**

~)51(~

As Johnny rejoined the men in the Rec room with Mike at his heals, he spotted his sister hovering close to Hank, coffee cup in hand. The usually very pale Mel was colored with embarrassment so his orange freckles were almost not visible. More coffee was already brewing and every man who was lucky enough to have a cup in hand was holding it possessively. Johnny scowled down at Mel. "Okay, Mel, what did you learn today about keeping your hands to yourself while trying to get a date?"

Mel's already pink ears went red and the men all laughed, Mel included. There was no explanation but Johnny didn't need one. He knew his sister very well. He took his place near the coffee pot and got his sister's attention. "Enakowa, was it you that makes this coffee?"

"It was me," she answered back and crossed the room to stand near him. "Will your partner be here soon?"

"I think he must be late. Normally he is here before I am, already working. What have you that must be done today?"

"I have many tasks. I have to collect my uniforms and Dixie has paper work for me. After that I want to go to your place and sort things out and visit with your neighbor again. She makes good tea."

The two chattered on, not realizing the other guys were looking at them. The interchange of their language got more than one pair of curious eyes looking at them both. Hank turned his head away from the paper work and gave Johnny a look and interrupted the chatter. "You know what I'm thinking, Pal?" his tone was apologetic. He knew from what he'd seen the previous week that the siblings were not intending to be rude to anyone.

Johnny stopped in mid-sentence and he looked at his sister, brows up, and jaw slack. "Cap, guys...sorry..."

Nakee nodded and displayed the sort of body language that Johnny used when he was a little embarrassed. "We...uh...just sort of slip into it without realizing. I was just telling him everything I have to get done today. I start work at Rampart tomorrow morning."

"Oh yeah?" Hank grinned broadly. "What did you get hired to do, Miss Gage?"

"Nursing. I just finished school a couple of weeks ago. Dixie wants to put me right in the ER to begin with."

Spike and his paramedic partner both gave each other a look. Johnny didn't miss it. He got the first cup from the second pot of coffee and left Hank and Nakee to their conversation while he trotted over to B-shift's medics. "One of you might as well take off if you want. By the looks of things, Roy's gonna be late."

"I thought so." Spike gave his partner a 'shoo' motion, and Patrick returned a grateful pat and departed to the locker room. He passed by Mike as he delivered his cup to the sink and didn't notice that the Engineer was looking oddly at Hank as he and Nakee talked. As Mike poured a coffee for himself, he was wishing that he could talk to her that easily, and that somehow he could get her away from all the guys. Against his own better judgment, he couldn't help but to feel angry at Hank.

The back door opened, and Marko and Chet started to walk in with dignified posture and steps full of purpose, but they spotted the gorgeous creature talking to Hank and one tripped over the other. Johnny couldn't help but to laugh at them. Marko babbled something in Spanish that sounded almost prayerful while Chet gaped openly.

Johnny stepped forward still chuckling and made a motion at the girl. She went directly to his side and in that instant Marko and Chet got a look on their faces that suggested they were both trying to not say anything stupid, even though stupid was all that was on their minds at the moment. "Guys, like to introduce you to my sister!" He smiled broadly as he presented her, "Enakowahanahai Gage, this is..."

"Marko Lopez!" Nakee guessed and threw herself at him and hugged the very surprised Latino. Marko laughed, surprised as he hugged her back.

The B-shift men all stared, round-eyed with jealousy, because they hadn't gotten any hugs. And Mike stood back feeling downright angry.

Nakee let go of Marko, "I've heard you make delicious Irish stew!"

"I'll be more than happy to make some for you...uhh...could you say your name again?" he looked from her to Johnny.

"Call me Nakee!"

"Knocky?" Marko smiled and his eyes smoldered with fire, but then he blinked and his mind cleared. "I heard from one of my cousins that a girl with the last name of Gage was going to be working at Rampart. I was wondering if she was related to you, Johnny. I guess I have my answer now, but I didn't know you had a sister at all." He looked a bit miffed at Johnny, who only shrugged and kept silent. Marko focused on Nakee, "It's wonderful to meet you, Nakee." He smiled helplessly as if at a vision of an angel. "You uh...wouldn't happen to be single would you?"

Johnny growled and shoved Marko in the direction of the coffee pot and pulled the very dazed Chet over by one arm. "This is..."

"Chester B. Kelly ma'am." Chet smiled like an idiot and blushed while his jaw refused to close.

Nakee laughed girlishly and hugged him warmly. Chet wore such a goofy smile that even the hard-at-the-paper-work Captains had to spare a moment to laugh at his reaction to the girl. "You are the mischievous one I heard about!" Nakee said, with her head over Chet's shoulder.

Chet just wanted to have a taste of whatever she was made of. She smelled delicious! "So you've heard about the infamous phantom?"

"How could I have not heard about him?" Nakee kissed his cheek before letting go of him.

Chet pretended that he was about to faint and caught a hold of Johnny to stop himself falling to the floor. Automatically Johnny grabbed him and braced his own balance, but then tried to shove him off, "Chet! Get off me!"

This left Nakee laughing with delight, while Boot yapped, and Johnny grouched at Chet as he pushed him off. No one in the room could stop smiling at the antics, except Mike. He was so furious that he could barely stop himself running straight at Chet and tackling him to the floor. He watched as Nakee and Chet laughed together and broke into animated conversation and couldn't help but to feel completely aggravated. He wondered why he could not bring himself to say more than four intelligible words to the girl while everyone else was able to engage in lengthy conversations with her. He sighed miserably and finally took a sip of the coffee he'd been holding. And his brain did a spin inside of his skull. It was absolutely the most delicious coffee he'd ever had in his life.

"Hank!" Captain Moor carried a clipboard over to him, and put his hand on the nearest chair that was occupied with the rookie. "Move it, kid!"

Surprised, Sam vacated the chair for his Captain. Moor drew Hank into a conversation as he passed forms to him. "We had quite a few squad runs and the boys didn't get a chance to stop and refill their supplies yet."

Hank lifted his head at this, "Why didn't you tell me that sooner?"

"Sorry, Hank. I was distracted. With Carl coming and all this other paper work to catch up on."

"Figures the Weasel has to show up this morning! I'm just getting off overtiming for 45 and had to deal with him there all day yesterday!" Hank made a disgusted motion at the other Captain, then looked back at John. "John, Spike, get to the inventory!"

Johnny met Hank's eyes and looked to his sister. He got a nod from his captain that said he'd look after her—or rather he'd see to it that no one gave her any more reasons to cause them injury.

"We'll have to run to Rampart, Johnny," Spike offered and followed after him out to the bay.

"I'm driving!" Johnny demanded as the door swung shut.

Moor hollered at his remaining men. "You three quit gawking at our guest and get the hell outta here!"

"Awww...but Cap! We like to gawk at..."

"OUT!"

The remaining B-shift men scuffled and tripped over each other in their haste to escape the Rec room.

"Lopez! Kelly!" Hank hollered. "You got five minutes before roll call!"

Chet stopped in mid conversation with Nakee, "Awww...but Cap! Someone's gotta keep her..."

"Move it Kelly!" Hank shouted and saw one man remained, Mike. "Stoker!"

Mike was jarred out of his reverie in which he'd been staring at Nakee's gorgeous ankles. "Yeah Cap?"

Hank scowled up at him. Mike was usually quiet, but he was never nervous or jumpy like this. Maybe he was still a little uptight about having been injured. Or, more likely, Miss Gage had caused his male brain to hit the 'off switch' on his Human brain. The poor guy looked like he wanted to run away shrieking. "Mike, why don't you take Miss Gage for a tour of the station?"

Mike froze as Nakee walked gracefully to him, and she looked up at him expectantly, eyes sparkling. Chet and Marko were still close enough to have heard this and they turned back to glare. Chet made as if to go back in and demand a fair share, but Marko grabbed his arm and pulled him along for the locker room. "No point riling the Captain, amigo. You keep having to clean the latrine enough as it is."

Chet grunted his agreement to this and went along with Marko, but scowled as the squad drove away out the bay door. He watched it turn down the road as the door began to close automatically. "Ya know, I don't think Gage ever mentioned he had a sister."

Marko shrugged and pushed into the locker room.  
.

Within the Rec room, Nakee grasped a hold of Mike's arm. She cast a look of gratitude to Hank, but he'd already turned back to Moor and the paper work. It dawned on her that despite the ten or so men in the building, she was very much alone with Mike. Nervously she squeezed his arm, trying to think of something to say, and wishing someone would come to the rescue. He was looking back, but she thought he was just trying to be polite. This made her wonder if he was noticing how her teeth were crooked, and that her nose was not straight and her hair was probably a mess as usual, or she had acne pimples along her brows.

Someone knocked on the door and drew her attention. She saw a red headed fireman wearing the usual uniform, but with a tie tucked into the navy zip-up jacket. Hank and Moor both saw the man and uttered out a very deliberate and polite greeting as if they were a pair of very well trained school boys, "Good morning, Carl!"

"Captain Moor, I see you're not done," the man's voice was oily and Nakee felt her spine tingle. From the responsive body language of the two captains at the table, she guessed they didn't like him at all. He walked in with a rather smug attitude and a trace of a sneer lingered in the vicinity of his nostrils and upper lip. She immediately felt wary and clutched a tighter hold of Mike's arm. The newcomer's eyes went up and down the lines of her body and gave her the feeling he was undressing her mentally. Of course, she had gotten that same feeling from a couple of the other firemen, but their stares had been only the usual curious stares of lustful men. This man's stare was downright vile and held malicious intentions that she did not like. Men like him were the reason Johnny had taught her how to defend herself at an early age.

Hank didn't miss the sinister gleam in the visiting man's eyes and glanced furtively to the side and saw Mike's booted feet and Miss Gage's sandals. He hated to growl at poor Mike, but he wanted the girl out of sight of the nauseating Carl Phillips. Glorified secretary was what he was, he thought. Normally that position was given to fire fighters who'd been disabled, but this guy had gotten the job because everyone hated him and could not live in the same station with him. The only reason he had a job was because he was the son of some chief who felt the department owed him more than a paycheck and a fat pension. Hank turned to Mike and cleared his throat and made a motion with his head for them to leave. Mike just was not with it though today, and he didn't see it. "Mike!" he waved him for the door. "Take Miss Gage to see the hose tower!"

"Uh," Mike blushed. "Right, Cap."

Nakee was the one who had the sense to take Mike's coffee cup out of his hand and she pulled him out the back door.

Once outside, Mike was stunned to realize what a lucky break he had been blessed with. Nakee had been practically handed to him on a silver platter! She was holding onto his arm! He grinned at her, wondering what now what he had done to deserve such a lucky break as this. "It's this way..." he guided her along, holding her fingers on his upper arm with his other hand. He wanted to stare into her diamond eyes, but knew better than to not watch where he was going while a Gage was holding onto him.

"What's it for?" Nakee asked when she saw hoses dangling down from the metal tower.

Mike looked up at the hose tower as he explained, "After the...uh...hoses are used we have to let them dry out or else they get full of mold. So we hang them up there."

"That must take some effort to carry them up! I bet they're heavy, especially when they're wet!" Nakee stopped herself from talking any further. She now had a mental image of herself with a dingy look on her face, declaring, 'Oh my! You must be such a strong and ferocious man!'

"We manage," Mike shrugged. "Its a nice view up top," he offered to lead her up the metal staircase. "Wanna go up?"

"I'd love too!" Her cheeks colored.

Mike was stunned by the blushing beauty that stood before him, and he gulped with fright. Her eyes narrowed in the bright sunlight, and her smile was broad and these things reminded him sharply of whose sister she was. He led her up the stairs. Normally it wasn't allowed, but he just couldn't help himself. She hung onto his arm all the way up, and he was glad she was so unwilling to let go of him—after all she was Johnny's sister and it was very possible she was accident-prone. It was also very nice to have her at his side. Countless times, he'd wished he could share the view from the hose tower with someone who had not already seen it.

"Wow!" Nakee exhaled and stared off into the distance of busy highways once they were at the top. "It's magnificent!"

Mike looked down at the lovely brown-eyed girl, and the soft glow of her honey-gold skin. "It's even more magnificent now that you're here." Mike almost choked realizing the words had just tumbled off his tongue. He hoped that hadn't sounded too corny. But she shone the Gage smile up at him, then leaned her head against his shoulder and put one arm behind his back. It just seemed natural to drape his arm over her shoulders. He could feel her body move as she breathed. With his other hand, he had to grab a hold of the railing, feeling almost dizzy enough to fall over and that was not because of the height. He was smiling so hard his cheeks hurt and his brows seemed to be stuck in their highest position.

More To Come...


	4. Chapter 4

**JOKESTER**

~)51(~

Roy turned his car into the station's parking lot. He was harassed and irritated with the events of his morning, and hoped his Captain would not be in one of his 'moods.' The sight of a certain department cruiser dashed his hopes though. That vehicle belonged to a very sleazy and irritating paper pusher by the name of Carl Philips. Even Hank called him a weasel. The snide little twerp tended to irritate Captain Stanley to no end, and brought out the worst in him. Roy had been on the receiving end a few times of Carl's nitpicking and the man seemed to know how to find people's raw nerves and when he did he would tread upon them repeatedly and deliberately. "Damn, he would have to be here now!" He parked in the last remaining space. There was another car in the lot that belonged to Spike Jones, B-shift's senior medic. Spike was a good guy. At least he'd get to have a quick talk with him.

He did not hurry into the station as he carried in his duffle bag, and even paused to see Mike walking along with a gorgeous slender girl with flowing dark hair hanging on his arm. The sight of her even from the distance was downright stunning and he couldn't help but to watch her for a moment. She walked with her feet at an outward angle and her head tipped in just such a way that struck him as familiar. He might have liked to talk with her and ask her where he'd run into her before, but he was late. By the looks of things, he doubted that Mike would want him to interrupt anyway.

He spotted the Captain in the Rec Room, leaning against the counter, coffee in one hand and a clipboard in the other, and Roy was shocked to see he looked like an unshaven mess and his shirt was half buttoned. The mountain worth of paper work scattered over the table perhaps had something to do with his Captain's frenzied appearance. He looked furious and Roy wished he would have been in his office so he could have slipped by without being noticed. "Sorry I'm late, Cap."

Hank shot him a grouchy scowl, but then deflated and Roy could almost see his blood pressure going down. "Last cup of coffee here, better get it."

Roy was shocked at this invitation and poured the last in the pot for himself. It smelled wonderful and he drank and figured Johnny must have made it. His ability to make such good coffee was one of his best talents. And today it was better than usual. "Mmm!" He thought it was no wonder Hank wasn't in as bad a mood as he'd expected. "That's really good today."

"Yeah, it's really good." Hank's brows went up, "What happened to you? You're never late!"

Roy didn't want to get into the whole fiasco of his morning, but felt he owed him an explanation. "The power and the phones went out on my side of town sometime in the middle of the night. I woke up when it was still dark and noticed it though and woke up my wife. She got up, and she was gonna stay up and do what she could to save the food in the fridge. But on her way down the stairs to the basement freezer, she fell and twisted her leg and we ended up in the ER."

"Nothing serious I hope?"

"No, but she's on pain killers and they make her too fuzzy to deal with the kids. So, I had to go chasing around the neighborhood and find someone to look after my kids. I couldn't call anyone since the phones are out. Joanne was too out of it to tell me who to look for. I only know the first names of some girls that watch kids so here's me, knocking on doors and asking strangers for their wives by their first names."

Hank laughed and shook his head. The conversation might have continued, but Roy spotted Mike and the dark haired girl walking by the open door and wondered again where he'd seen her. "She is really familiar. Where have I seen her before?"

Hank nearly chocked on his coffee. "You must have met her before!"

Roy turned and showed him a confused expression.

Hank's brows went up in surprise. "You really haven't met her?"

"I don't know. She seems really familiar. I feel like I should know her as well as I know Johnny. But I think I'd remember someone that good looking and..." He scowled realizing what Hank's tone of voice had been suggesting. "Why do you think I 'must' have met her already?"

Hank was looking at him and smirking, holding back some private joke, "Maybe you should go have a talk with your..."

"Cap?" Spike stuck his head in the door. "His Majesty, Lord Philips of the shining mountain of odiferous dung has requested that I summon you to his throne room."

Roy laughed at Spike's sarcastic play-acting. Hank exhaled and tried to contain a goofy grin. "Oh, great." He laughed helplessly. "That's wonderful, Spike! Thank you for leaving me with a case of the giggles."

"Sire, it is my utmost pleasure to do the bidding of my Lords," Spike made a magnificent bow as he waved one arm and backed out of the room theatrically.

Hank stared at the empty doorway a moment and blinked, then cleared his throat and chuckled helplessly. "Hurry up, so Spike can get home there, pal." He slapped Roy's shoulder a bit harder than necessary.

"K, cap," Roy's tone and expression were full of gratitude toward his Captain for having Not chewed him up for being late.

Hank set his coffee cup down and exited, shoulders set with visible tension. Roy wanted to finish his coffee, but left it behind and went to change. He'd find out who was next in line to make coffee and make them trade some other small chore with Johnny. All the guys were more than thrilled to put away Johnny's dishes for him in exchange for his coffee. He looked around the bay and spotted his partner squatting on the floor and refilling the IV box. "Morning." he said to his back.

Johnny turned and looked up, surprised to see him, "Where the hell have you been?"

"I knew if it wasn't Hank, it'd be you griping at me for being late," Roy sighed and waited for it.

"Huh?" Johnny shook his head. "Oh, never mind! Figures you'd be late today. I got someone here I want you to meet..."

"That girl is your guest?" Roy pointed a thumb over his shoulder, and did not hide his shock.

"Yeah. She's my..." Johnny scowled as he got to his feet. "What's wrong?"

"Maybe you better go extricate her from Mike before..."

Johnny waved his hands in a 'no' gesture and he opened his mouth to speak, but...

"Mr. Gage! I would like a word with you!" Carl Philips shouted from the office in such a tone that everyone knew the man was being nasty, waiting to be nastier yet, and enjoying himself thoroughly.

Johnny let out a loud exhalation and clutched the bridge of his nose with one hand. "Be right there!" He looked down at Spike, who was squatted in front of the trauma box. "IV box is done." He hopped over the scattered boxes and walked to the office, his body language stiff. "Yeah, Carl?"

The voice from within was malicious, "I would like to know what this means, Mr. Gage."

"I really hate that guy." Roy saw his Captain's hand push the office door shut.

"You should have heard him earlier." Spike shoved the IV box in the squad. "He threw some paper work back at Captain Moor and demanded he recopy the whole thing. In his words, 'it should at least look better than the handwriting of a third grader. And he's all over your poor Captain for being messy, doesn't care that he did overtime yesterday at 45's, and won't let him off the paper work long enough to get cleaned up."

Roy shook his head and wandered toward the locker room, "Man's gonna end up with a hose jammed up his..." he stopped as he saw Mike walking into the open back door of the bay, the dark haired girl on his arm, both so caught up with each other they didn't notice anyone else. Mike seemed almost happy enough to start dancing with her as he showed her into the dorm. Roy caught a motion of her slender arm, and was drawn to look at her pigeon toed feet and wondered again where he'd seen her. He heard Marko say something to Chet, and spotted them on the far side of the engine routing around in the compartments, checking equipment. "Morning guys!"

"Morning? I don't think its morning anymore, man!" Chet joked. "What happened to you?"

"Power failure."

Marko poked his head around the engine. "Its maybe lucky you weren't here amigo. Philips has taken every one of us into the office and dressed us down for really stupid things—well except Mike. He's had poor Johnny in there twice!"

"Three times now!" Spike rattled around in the squad's compartments.

"Guy needs to stop messing with him." Chet's tone was dangerous and he was glaring in the general direction of the office.

Roy could see he was pondering some revenge. "Don't even think about it, Chet. He's not the kind of guy who would respond well to the Phantom's attention. You'd only make it worse. Besides, Cap's in there. He won't let it go further than necessary." Roy went into the locker room to change. He hoped Hank wouldn't let it go too far. Johnny somehow had gotten on Carl Philips bad side over a year ago when they'd first met. But so had every other man that ever crossed the man's path.  
.

"So what do you think of the place?" Mike asked as he led Nakee out of the dorm.

She spun around to face him and walked backwards, hands clasped behind her back. Her eyes looked toward the ceiling and then at him. "It's feels-uh," she searched for a word, "Feels more like a home than I thought it would."

"Yeah, it is home for us." He looked around at the bay, remembering back to the first time he'd ever seen the station. "Its not as magnificent as the big stations with their poles and armies of trucks. But it's got heart." Mike followed her graceful backward steps, deliberately making her keep going. She looked back every so often to see what was behind her. He wanted to reach for her, and take her by the waist and slow dance with her. For now, he would settle for her attention, and continued to walk toward her and she kept walking back. She was very nearly against the wall and her eyes flashed with understanding. She knew he was trying to corner her, and so she turned putting her back to the open rear bay door. Now, he couldn't box her against the wall, and he thought she might keep on backing up all the way out of the bay if he kept going. Maybe he might have thought of this as an inconvenience, but he was actually impressed with her for having recognized what he was trying to do and countering his move with great tact. And to make matters even better, she stopped on her own terms, and looked up at him and giggled high and sweet reminding him of a fairy—a feisty fairy, he thought.

"You...uh..." he reached for her arms, wanting to take her hands into his. He hoped she liked movies. Her hands fluttered into his like a pair of trusting butterflies. She was too good to be true, and he had to have her, and not just for one date. He could see his children sparkling in her diamond eyes and hear the ring of destiny in her voice.

Boot yapped sharply and whined from somewhere. The bay's closet door rattled. The spell was broken!

"OH!" Nakee gasped and went to the door. "How did the poor thing get in there?"

Mike scowled, and wondered the same thing. He'd find out how the dog got in there and kick the person who did that. It had taken him all morning to work up the courage to try to ask her out and the dog blew it!

Nakee couldn't seem to get the doors to open. It was really important to her to get the poor dog out of there. Mike realized that someone had shut the doors wrong and they were stuck again, "Here, let me try."

Nakee backed off one step, and Mike found the doorknob was jammed again. Someone had forgotten to lift the door before shutting it. He gave the knob a very hard twist and then the dog shoved the door open with a yap. A springy 'click,' sounded, and a lot of cold water splashed out. Mike got a bit of it in the face, but Nakee was in just the right spot and got splashed dead on. She let out a high and very loud shriek of surprise that echoed throughout the bay and brought a few voices inquiring their concern. Nakee now stood suddenly very still, a look of pure shock on her face to find herself drenched and dripping all over the concrete floor.

Mike wiped water out of his eyes. He knew he should have done something, but his mind was clouded by anger and confusion and he couldn't think of much. And when his vision cleared and he looked at a very wet Nakee, he could think of even less. "Uh..."

"What's going on?" Marko, Chet and Spike came jogging along wanting to help if they could.

Nakee wiped her wet hair out of her face and shook her arms. The four men in front of her were gaping. They saw how thin her wet dress was, and how the ungathered upper portion was quite translucent and sticking to her body. They stared helplessly, seeing the lace of her bra, the line down the center of her abdomen that ran down to the hollow of her naval and down further they could just almost see the hint of the top of her pink underwear. Chet couldn't breathe. Marko looked rather lightheaded. Spike very nearly panted like a dog, and Boot yapped and then howled. "I'll go along with that," Spike agreed with the dog. Nakee pouted and made a small whimper in her throat.

More To Come...


	5. Chapter 5

**JOKESTER**

~)51(~

"Enakowa?" Johnny's voice rang through the bay. He jogged to the group and saw the guys staring stupidly at his sister's body through the very revealing wet fabric. "Get outta there!" he shoved Spike and Marko out of his way and put himself in front of her, cutting off the view.

They all heard Carl's voice growling from the office, "Mr. Gage, I'm not finished!"

Johnny chose to ignore Carl, and growled, "Chet! Why'd you let her be the one too get Phantomed?"

"Uhh..." Chet gawked and tried to make his mind work. "Huh?"

Johnny glared back at him, as he shrugged out of his jacket. Nakee looked down at herself at last and then looked at the faces of the men surrounding her. They were gaping and turning various colors and Johnny was frantically trying to guard her privacy. She threw her head back and laughed as she rubbed more water off her face.

Chet's voice cracked, "It wasn't me!"

Johnny scowled as he encased his giggling sister into his jacket. "As if we'd believe that line!"

Nakee laughed harder as she clutched Johnny's jacket around herself, "I guess I've been christened by the Phantom then?"

"It wasn't me! I swear!" Chet whined.

Johnny didn't hear one word of this though. He led Nakee toward the dorm room door. She was laughing so hard her knees were going weak and he had to half carry her. "You know, you're not helping much!" His complaint only made her laugh harder.

Mike turned to grouch at Chet, but Hank was striding toward them, and he half bellowed, "What is going on here?" He saw the mess of water on the floor, on Mike, and spotted Johnny leading his wet, giggling sister into the dorm.

The sound of Nakee's laughter was cut off when the door shut. Hank bounced on his toes as he spotted the puddle of water and the tracks made by Nakee and Boot. There in the closet was the Phantom's catapult. "Chet get the mop."

"It wasn't me."

"Right," Hank rolled the word sarcastically then looked to Mike. "What...uh...?"

"Boot was in the closet. Nakee heard him whining and..." Mike cleared his throat quietly.

Surprised, Hank shot a brows up look at Chet, and asked, "You put the dog in the closet?"

"No! I swear I didn't set that up, Cap!" Chet objected anxiously.

The locker room door opened and Roy shouted out, "HEY!" as Johnny shoved him out, half dressed. The door closed and Roy looked back one finger up in a 'wait a minute' gesture. Before he could speak, the door opened, and Johnny handed out Roy's shoes and shirt. Roy opened his mouth and blinked as the door shut again. He saw the mess of water in the bay and the men standing there looking miffed. He wondered, "What just happened?"

No one answered him, but Mike saw Chet standing too close and just wanted to throttle him. He settled for giving him a hard shove. Chet faltered backwards two or three steps as Mike yelled, "I cannot believe you would let that happen to her!"

"Mike!" Hank hissed, shocked by the actions of the usually very easy going engineer.

Chet put up his hands in surrender. "Come on, Mike! I swear! I didn't have anything to do with this one!"

Spike chuckled stupidly and put his hands to his heart. "I must confess that my gratitude shall be ever lasting to thy activities of such mischeif that hath revealed such beauty through the drenching of the Lady most fare! O' ever were thou bossoms clad in delicate wisps of lace to reveal bountiful shape as ripe as peaches and youthful slender shape of prime womanliness!" Marko and Chet broke into giggles, and Spike cleared his throat as he spotted Hank's angry expression. "I mean, Cap, she's got lacey pink..."

"Spike! Shut up!" Mike spat venomously and the sudden angry vocalization was so out of character for him that even Hank was too shocked to think of something to say. Mike's reaction had them all staring at him in silence. Even Mike looked surprised at his own reaction and was now blushing. Hank cleared his throat as he smoothed his hair. "Spike—uh, as soon as Miss Gage is out of the locker room...you should go."

Carl Philips made an unwelcome appearance from the office, "Captain Stanley where is Mr. Gage, I have to finish with..." he trailed off and his eyes squinted as he spotted Roy attempting to get to the engine's rear platform to get his boots on while not getting his socks wet from all the water on the floor. "I see you've finally materialized, Mr. Desoto! 'I' would like a word with you."

Hank glared at Philips and stalked into his office with Roy. Phillips sneered back at Hank, "Captain it is not necessary for you too..."

"It's my prerogative, Mr. Pillips! 'I' am his Captain!" Hank's tone was an order.

The door shut on the three with a 'BANG!' and Marko growled in the direction of Carl Phillips. "My mamma would call him vomit of a cockroach."

Chet and Spike burst into giggles and the locker room door opened. Johnny stepped out, laughing. He took up residence with his back to the door. Mike looked in his direction, not wanting to approach, "I hope you had something to lend to her?"

"Yeah," Johnny nodded. "Mike, don't worry so..." he looked left and right and his brows arched as he saw the Captain's office door was shut. "Don't tell me Roy's in there now?"

They all nodded and Spike muttered something that only Chet caught, and both of them broke into laughter.

Johnny scowled, "Man! That guy has some sort of a god complex. Its like he deliberatly puts Hank in a bad mood to make the rest of us miserable."

Chet went closer to Johnny, making no move to see around him or get through the door he was guarding, "What was he grinding you about?"

"He just keeps going over the logs and my paper work and asks questions and demands to know what things mean. I think he's more mad that he can't find any reason to complain than anything." Johnny looked in the direction of the office for a minute, and then blinked. "I know he was waiting for Hank to walk away long enough so he can say something snide to me though without any witnesses."

"Yeah," Marko nodded. "He does that to me too."

"Me too," Spike added.

There came a small voiced call from behind the locker room door and Johnny stepped out of the way. Nakee pushed through and walked out in Johnny's maroon jogging suit. She had the pants and the sleeves cuffed up, but it seemed to fit her otherwise. Her dress was rolled up under her arm along with her purse. "I hung your jacket up to dry and brought you the fresh one." She handed Johnny his jacket. He took it and slid into it quickly. Nakee saw the looks on the faces of the other men. Spike and Marko were looking at her with very bemused smiles that made her blush, but she knew neither of them meant any harm. Mike was downright angry though and kept glancing at Chet, while Chet looked very worried. Nakee decided to do something about this. "Oh stop worrying! I'm not mad..." she trailed off into giggles and smiled beautifully. "No one else should be mad either. It was a joke meant to make people laugh. And when you make someone laugh without hurting anyone, it makes people love you more."

Marko couldn't help a smile. Mike shrugged looking defeated, but then Nakee went to Chet and gave him a hug and Mike looked angry again as she spoke to Chet, "I feel like you christened me a new member of station 51." She pressed a loud kiss on Chet's cheek before letting him go. He grabbed a hold of his heart and made a gasping sound and staggered in place as if he was having a heart attack.

Nakee laughed aloud, and she was obviously charmed by Chet's tomfoolery. Johnny and Marko also had to laugh. But Mike was turning an angry shade of pink. No one noticed this though, because Nakee tugged Johnny's arm and announced. "I had better go. I'm out of time."

"Awww...!" Spike moaned. "Canst not the lady fare remain hither? For sooth I should pray and bid thee to linger and bless our most humblest abode with thy graceful and sweet voice."

Nakee shook her head at this and asked, "Huh?"

Chet translated. "He wants you to stay."

"Yeah Nakee!" Marko pleaded.

Johnny sighed, "I really wanted you to meet Roy."

"Where is he though?"

"In the office getting the third degree from Carl Phillips." Johnny leaned his back against the wall and crossed his arms. "That guy will keep him in there until lunch. I guess you should just go do what you have to do. But, I really was hoping things would work out. Now that he's seen you, I bet he'll be thinking that I'm keeping you a secret. I wanted him to meet you in person, and not just tell him about you."

Nakee looked up at him, understanding. "I can come back. I'll be on this side of town later on. I've got to pick up my uniforms and..." she trailed off thinking.

Marko and Chet looked at each other. The siblings had been talking in their language for a few minutes, and by the directions of their looks, Chet was guessing what they were talking about. Marko butted in. "John, you know, you should invite her to dinner."

"Yeah, Nakee! Have dinner with us!" Chet invited.

"Aunt Patty already asked me for tonight." She saw the disappointed looks on Chet and Marko's faces and then looked up at Johnny. "You're working a two day shift, right?"

All three firemen nodded. "Tomorrow then?" Marko pleaded.

Nakee answered, "As long as it's all right with the powers that be. I don't want to get you in trouble." She looked at Johnny as she said this.

"It's fine." Johnny nodded. "We're allowed to have direct family members visit for about an hour per shift."

"I've already been here for two!" Nakee's eyes went round with worry.

Johnny shrugged. "I never had any close relatives around before and I think the guys here want me to make up for lost time."

The guys all agreed whole-heartedly with vigorous nods.

"Then I will be here with bells on!" She reached around Marko for a goodbye hug. As she walked toward Spike, he dropped to one knee and kissed her hands as he theatrically uttered, "I am but your humblest of servants, dear Lady!" Nakee giggled with delight at this. She hugged Mike and blushed as she stared at his eyes for a lingering instant. She wanted to kiss him, but wanted a real kiss, not just a little peck on the cheek. It would have to wait. She let him go, whispering, "I'll see you?"

He just nodded and grinned but as usual kept his silence.

Nakee turned to Johnny, "Jomahawadon, I would speak with you?" she said this in their native language. As Johnny headed out the back door of the bay with her, she waved back at the men. Spike oathed some theatrical mutterings, but Chet waved vigorously back and blew kisses at her and made her laugh and she pretended to catch one. Mike was getting very, very mad and glared at the twerp.

"I'll help you clean this up, Amigo," Marko offered when she was out of sight.

"Thanks Marko, but I am telling you, I didn't do this. Not that I regret it happening now," he touched the spot on his cheek where Nakee had kissed him. "Too bad I can't take the credit for it."

"Sure, Chet." Marko brought a mop and bucket to soak up the water. Chet might have continued to object but he knew it was pointless. No one was going to believe him. He wrung out the string mop and slapped it on the floor.

"I'll help too. After all, whoever it was that set up that catapult is now my hero!" Spike praised. Chet and Marko laughed vividly.

Mike couldn't stand the guys though and went into the Rec room to get away from them. He meant to start a pot of coffee, but realized he could see the two Gage siblings through the open curtain on the back door. He didn't mean to watch but he really just wanted to look at her from a distance. As the two walked away he noted how much alike they were. It wouldn't take anyone long to realize the two were related just by watching them walk. Their hair though drastically different in length was identical in color and texture. The way the two walked was like seeing a masculine and feminine version of the same gait. Johnny walked with a purposeful stride and so did Nakee, but they both had a kind of grace about them that reminded him of carnivores on a hunt, or maybe dancers on a stage.

He watched as Nakee said something to Johnny, and just by the way her head was turned, he knew she was talking in their language. Johnny seemed to roll his eyes, and then he pulled his money out of his front pocket and counted off two ones to keep for himself, and gave the rest to her. Mike really wished that he could have given her some cash, thinking he'd have given her more than eight dollars. The two hugged and Nakee got in Johnny's land rover and drove away. He waved her off, shouting at her to drive carefully and she honked the horn on the way down the driveway.

Mike proceeded to act like he'd been rinsing coffee cups, so that it would not look like he'd been watching out the window. He realized, he had been lurking and that wasn't nice. It was none of his business if Johnny gave his sister a few bucks. She had, after all, told them all she'd only just gotten out of school. How long would it be before she got her first paycheck from Rampart, he wondered. Would Johnny be able to afford to look after her in the meantime? It hadn't been hard to miss the fact that her dress was very worn out and her purse strap had been broken and tied back together. He got the coffee pot on the stove just as Johnny walked in through the back door. Mike saw that Johnny was about to start a conversation with him, but he stopped as Chet walked in to get a kitchen towel. "That little bit of water made a really big mess!"

"Yeah, whose fault is that, Chet?" Mike's tone was poison.

Chet looked at him, surprised. "Aw, come on! How many times do I have to say it? I didn't do it!"

"Oh, really, Chet? Who are you gonna blame for this? Him?" Mike waved at Johnny.

Johnny stared dumbfounded at the two. They were not just getting into a harmless contest of bickering, they were seriously arguing. He rubbed his forehead nervously, realizing the underlying cause for the argument was jealousy for his sister's attentions.

"For all I know, maybe it was Johnny! I know it wasn't me!"

"It couldn't have been him! He wasn't out of my sight until the Cap sent him to work on the squad!"

"Really? Well, he could have taken a break and slipped the catapult in the closet."

Johnny scowled at this and defended, "Chet, what in the world makes you think I'd want my sister wet in front of a half dozen guys?" he lowered his voice and motioned in the direction of Carl Phillips who he supposed was still in Hank's office acting like he thought he had rank. He hoped the comment would change the direction of the argument, "One of which I think is a perverted creep!"

Mike yelled at Chet though as if he'd said that last, "Don't misdirect the point!"

Chet did a double take looking first at John, then at Mike, and shouted, "What is the point?"

"You shouldn't have let her get in the way of that catapult!"

"I Told You! It Wasn't Me!" Chet roared. "And you can quit pretending yer mad about her getting wet! I think you're mad because you were trying to get some action with her!"

Johnny jumped between the two just in time to stop Mike barreling into Chet. "Mike Stop! Stop it! Nakee wasn't mad!"

Some look or gesture that Johnny didn't see from Mike was shot at Chet, and ended with the two trying to shove the paramedic out of the way so they could fight. Johnny roared as he stood his ground between them, "STOP! STOP IT!"  
.

Out in the bay, Stanley walked out of his office with Roy in tow, both of them looked mighty aggravated. Hank spotted Spike Jones engaged in animated conversation with Marko while making a motion at his chest with both hands to indicate breasts. Hank's temper ignited and he shouted, "Spike if you want to hang around all day, you can clean the latrine!"

Spike's theatrical voice sounded as he began to bow and utter, "I shall, then, most certainly..."

"NOW SPIKE!" Hank roared.

"I'm going!" Spike yelped and made a hasty retreat into the locker room.

And Hank then heard Johnny's raised voice coming from the Rec room, shouting, "Just stop! Stop It!"

Before Roy could rush onward, Hank stopped him with a look. "You should tie your shoes, there, Roy." He walked purposefully into the Rec Room and took in the scene of Chet and Mike trying to fight while Gage was between the two, and though neither of the other two angry men were hurting Johnny, they were trying so hard to get him out of the way that he was slipping out of his jacket.

"Gage!" Hank shouted from the doorway, startling the three into stopping and spinning around and Mike and Chet backed off, leaving a breathless Johnny standing and looking like he thought the fight was his fault. The Captain motioned over his shoulder with his thumb, and said calmly, "Gage, your partner needs some help."

"Uh..." Johnny stepped warily around Chet and noted the poisonous look on Mike's face. "Right, Cap." He ran off fixing his jacket on the way out.

Hank let the Rec room door swing shut, and he looked at the two glaring men, cleared his throat and scowled at them from beneath his dark brows. "I understand very well now why Johnny never brought her here before and why he never even mentioned her." Hank paused to let that sink into their heads through the cloud of fury. "Do you two realize how uncomfortable you must've made him?"

Mike blinked, and Chet looked up confused. This was the last thing the two had expected to hear. Mike shook his head, "Cap?"

Chet looked confused. "But Cap, I'm not the one that..."

"I'm not talking about the water catapult, Chet!" Hank snapped and the two went dead silent. "I am talking about this fight! I cannot believe I walked in here to find you two at each other's throats like this! You could be suspended for this! And its the last thing I need Carl Phillips to catch!" He put a hand on each man's shoulder and pulled them close so he could speak to them without being overheard. "I think you'd have to be downright stupid to not realize that you two are Not fighting over who pulled a prank. And Johnny might be a twit at times, but he is NOT stupid. He knows you two are fighting over his sister! I bet he's wondering right now if it was a bad idea to bring her here. And if I was him I would think twice about inviting her back."

Mike and Chet shot surprised looks at their captain, and both realized now that they were jealous of the other. Chet fidgeted with his ear. Mike colored, realizing just how mad he'd been at Chet and now that Hank was making him think, there was no reason for being angry with Chet. Nakee had kissed him, not the other way around.

"Both of you are going to apologize to Johnny, and you will do it before lunch time!" Hank ordered.

Chet and Mike nodded and muttered, "Yessir," and thinking it was over they tried to walk away, but Hank did not let them go. Chet and Mike looked at each other and then at their Captain.

Hank had his brows raised at them. "Both of you really need to stop and think about what you could be getting into if you go after her." He paused for a second to let that sink into Mike's head. "Going out with her might be worse than opening up a can of worms—more like breaking into a barrel of poisonous snakes. Not that she's a bad girl, but the situation is. If a relationship ends badly with her, you'd still have to work with John. It might be better if both of you looked elsewhere, all right?"

Chet nodded and sighed. He was not about to admit that he knew Nakee was way out of his league anyway. But Mike very suddenly shoved Hank's arm off and walked out the back door and even slammed it. Chet was surprised by this. "Wow! Never knew Mike had that kind of temper in him."

"Hush!" Hank gave Chet a shove. "Go finish cleaning up the mess in the bay."

"But Cap! I didn't do it!" He objected hotly. But at a warning look from his Captain, he walked off to the bay, muttering, "Yessir."

And the Captain looked out the door in the direction Mike had gone and spotted him slouched in the shade of the hose tower. Hank wasn't seeing the temper that Chet had seen from Mike. Before his engineer had turned away, he'd seen the raw hurt in his face. This made the Captain sigh with frustration. Mike had already fallen in love with Nakee Gage.

"Captain Stanley!" Carl's shouting voice was shrill and made him think of metallic claws scratching down over glass.

"Oh dear God!" Hank begged looking up, "Please make him leave!"

As if in answer to his prayers, the alarm clamored, and he and his men stampeded to their places on the trucks. Mike got in his seat, the perfect picture of professionalism, and the wailing engine rumbled down the road to the east behind the squad.

More To Come...


	6. Chapter 6

**JOKESTER**

~)51(~

Johnny meandered through a thin crowd of hospital staff and patients to the nurse's station at Rampart to find Dixie there with paperwork in hand and phone tucked between her shoulder and ear. "Hi, Johnny! You just missed Nakee."

"Oh? She's been here already?" he asked as he helped himself to the coffee pot.

There was no immediate answer as Dixie finished her phone conversation. Once she dumped the receiver back into the cradle she grinned to the paramedic. "I helped her finish her paper work, and I bet she's just getting out of the parking lot now." Dixie's brows rose. "She makes really good coffee. Joe and Kel were talking about having it analyzed to see if she puts some secret ingredient in it."

Johnny chuckled as he sipped the coffee in his cup and grinned. "Oh yeah that's the stuff." He set the cup down quickly and looked left and right. "Hey, uh, Dix." He smiled and clutched her upper arm gently to be sure he had her full attention. "Think you can keep her a secret from my partner?" Dixie's expression begged for an explanation, and he answered, "He doesn't know about her. A-and I really wanna introduce them to each other in person. I asked everyone at the station already to not let him know who she is."

"What in the world are you up to Johnny Gage?" Dixie demanded.

"I just wanna see the look on his face when I introduce her that's all. I mean-to me she's not even a girl; she's just a pest. But I still have eyes in my head."

Dixie patted his chest reassuringly and nodded. "My lips are sealed."

"Great. Thanks Dix." He resumed his coffee, but Dixie's demure expression peaked Johnny's curiosity and made him smile as he asked, "What?"

The nurse motioned with her chin in the direction of a pair of white clad orderlies who were chatting while they cleaned the waiting area. "She's got a lot of admirers already."

Johnny shrugged. "What can I say? She is related to a handsome guy like myself!" He grinned broadly, but the smile fell quickly as he glared at the two orderlies. One of the men made a rude gesture that made Johnny glower in their direction. He knew they were talking about his sister, "Not sure if I should be proud, or if I should go get a shotgun, or just mind my business."

Dixie's head titled as she made eye contact with someone behind Johnny. He turned to see Roy wearing a quizzical expression as he pointed out, "Minding your business isn't like you!"

"I know when to not butt into other people's business!" Johnny very nearly yelped out. "When do I stick my nose into other people's business?"

"At least once a day since I've known you!" Roy smirked at the anxious reaction as he put down the drug box and biophone and poured himself a cup of coffee and firmly ignored his partner's lengthy outburst. He knew his comment would make his partner rant like a nut, and Johnny was doing just that. Roy sipped the coffee and exchanged a very unsurprised but humored expression with Dixie. But then he did a double take. There was no missing his partner's coffee, and this was better than usual. Roy thought that he could not have been there long enough to have made a fresh pot. He looked at his watch, wondering how long he'd been in the treatment room with the patient.

Dixie watched amused as Johnny still whined about how he knew when to mind his own business. Roy rolled his eyes and tried to ignore him long enough to enjoy a bit more of the coffee. It was impossible to enjoy it though with Johnny almost wailing at him that he was not a busy body. "All right! All right!" Roy gave in. "You don't stick yer nose in other people's business! I heard you the first nine times! Now shut up!"

"Shut up?" Johnny asked in a shrill voice. "Are you saying I talk to much?" Johnny looked at Dixie. "He's saying I talk to much."

Silently, Dixie watched the interchange between the two. Roy wrinkled his nose while he knit his brows together. "Not that I'm arguing with you about talking too much, but that's not what I said! I told you to shut up!"

"Oh." Johnny stopped very suddenly. His angry expression melted away into a neutral grin and said, "Okay. I can live with that."

Roy now remembered he'd wanted to ask, "How'd you manage to make that coffee that fast?"

"Thought you wanted me to shut up? Now you're asking me questions?"

"I just wanna know how you did that so fast!"

"I didn't make the coffee!"

Roy laughed at this joke. "Funny guy. Won't admit to having made a pot of coffee cause he knows it'll drive me nuts."

Dixie grinned at this. "He didn't make the coffee."

Roy's jaw dropped. "Huh?"

"Can we go?" Johnny picked up the handy-talkie and the biophone and headed off. "Catch ya later, Dix."

She waved at him.

Roy was shocked and asked Dixie, "He didn't? But...?" He looked at Johnny's back as he stalked off and then back at Dixie's little grin. "Oh, you're joking! Everyone knows only he makes coffee taste like this. And this is better than he usually makes it."

Dixie just grinned though and waved.

"Roy, you coming?" Johnny demanded nearly out the door.

"Yeah, I'm coming." He grabbed the drug box and followed after his partner. "Later Dix."

"Bye," Dixie stared after the two for a second, laughed and then went back to her papers.  
.

Roy turned the squad out of Rampart's parking lot and down the road. He noted his silent partner in the passenger seat, looking out the window. "Are you going to tell me who that girl was?"

"What girl?" he actually looked confused and Roy knew his passenger honestly didn't know who he was talking about.

Roy's face contorted into disgust. "The girl with the long black hair! The stunning beauty that was at the station this morning! The one that drove away in your car!"

"Oh her!" Johnny seemed to remember now and his brows went down in a scowl, and he said matter-of-factly, "She's not a girl."

This response played itself over and over in Roy's head like a broken record and he felt his face contort from one expression to another. He drove and watched the road, feeling it might be better to leave the subject alone. But he couldn't stand it. He needed to know about the girl and why she was so familiar to him. "Could have fooled me," Roy wondered what game his partner was playing. "I suppose she was some other species of human, so that the females of her species are not called 'girls' but something else?"

Johnny gave no answer to this. Roy might not have minded a game of evasion, but he hated it when his jokes went unnoticed and he shouted, "What Is With You?"

Johnny startled out of his reverie, and yelped out, "There's Nothing With Me Today!"

"Yer not listening to me!" Roy said sharply as he drove. "Yer staring out the window in a daze! And you refuse to tell me who that girl is! And you know it's driving me crazy!"

"Why should that drive you crazy?" Johnny's voice came out in high tones he used when he teased people.

"Cause I feel like I should know who she is! Like her name should be on the tip of my tongue!" Johnny's sudden sharp and direct stare threw him off and made him feel he had to continue to explain himself. Roy let his exasperation come out in his voice. "I saw her from a distance while Mike was showing her around the station. The way she moves and laughs just struck me as familiar, like I should know her. I just wanna know where I've seen her before!"

Johnny was looking at him, brows rising. Roy drove a moment, keeping his eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel, but his partner was still staring. "What?" Roy asked explosively.

"You can't have met her before."

"How do you know that?" Roy groaned at the shrug his partner shouldered, and then shouted out, "Why won't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

Roy bit his lip and resisted the urge to let go of the steering wheel while going forty miles an hour to strangle his partner. He could see the headlines now, "ANNOYING PARTNER CAUSES PILEUP" Roy knew Johnny would tell him eventually who that girl was, but he was going to have to nag him to death to get the answer. "Who was that girl at the station this morning?" he stopped his partner with a motion. "And don't start with the thing about her not being a girl."

Johnny picked another route. "I wasn't gonna start that again..."

Roy rolled his eyes, "Course you weren't. You found a different tangent this time around."

"I don't go off on tangents!" Johnny objected loudly.

"Like that," Roy spat, frustrated and listened to his partner ramble pointlessly about how he did not go off on tangents.

.

~)51(~

At station 51, an apron clad Marko was at the stove nursing a pot of chicken soup while Mike was turning an entire loaf of bread into peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Being a kid at heart, he had to cut them into triangle halves as he stacked them on a platter. Jelly was getting all over his hands, and when the phone rang, he looked helplessly at Marko who said, "I'll get it!" he crossed to the phone quickly and snatched the receiver. "Station 51, fireman Mar...Oh! Hi Nakee! No, Johnny's on a run. Anything I can do? Sure, I can do that." He got a pencil and pad and got ready to write.

Mike stopped cutting sandwiches, and was so drawn to listen to the phone conversation that he didn't realize he was dripping jelly off his knife and hands onto the floor. He watched Marko scribble out a note quickly.

"Okay, Nakee." Marko nodded. "Wow, that's a lot of money! You really need that much stuff and they really won't let you...?" Marko listened as he scribbled more. "Yeah, I understand. Don't worry about it, Nakee. If he can't come up with that much, the rest of us will help out."

Jelly dripped off Mike's knife, and hit the floor with a small splat.

"Oh! Don't worry about it; you're not just his little sister anymore now, right? Okay, I'll be sure he gets it. Bye." Marko folded the note in half, wrote John's name on it in bright orange marker and tacked it on the bulletin board. He turned back to look at Mike and laughed. The engineer had his knife in one hand pointing straight up at the ceiling and his other hand dripping jelly on the floor. Marko did not want Mike to know what he was saying to him, so he deliberately chose to comment in Spanish; "Friend you are a perfect example of how love can turn a descent man into a very large idiot."

"Huh?" Mike asked stupidly. Marko only pointed at the plops of jelly on the floor and went to set the table. The confused engineer looked down and then sighed in frustration.

Hank leaned his whiskery head in just in time to see Mike cleaning the last of the jelly mess off the floor. "Marko, can I borrow your shaving cream?"

"Sure, Cap! Help yourself," Marko waved absently toward the locker room and Hank disappeared again.

.

Chet finished up the task of sweeping the bay and put the broom away into the storage cupboard, remembering automatically to lift the right door as he shut it so that it would not get stuck. "Marko, that smells really good!"

The chef replied his gratitude while he worked with Mike to cut vegetables for a big salad. Chet spotted the platter of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all cut into the perfect shape. "Hey, all right! You cut the sandwiches into tri..."

A loud 'BANG' sounded from the bay as a door slammed, and then, "KELLEEEEE!" Captain's voice bellowed across the bay. All three men startled and exchanged frightened glances.

"What'd you do this time, Chet?" Marko asked shaking a wooden spoon at him.

"I didn't do anything!" Chet shot out, but he looked worried.

"Sure." Marko went out into the bay, asking, "Cap?" he trailed off into Spanish mutterings that sounded like prayer as he dashed, frightened, back into the kitchen.

"WHERE IS HE?" Hank roared as he entered. His shadowy stubble was gone, but a distinct beard shaped bright spring green coloring remained on his face.

Chet's jaw dropped and he made a strangled noise. He seemed to be caught between wanting to laugh himself silly and knowing that he should probably run. He tried desperately to stop his giggling, but failed. Mike and Marko stared a moment and then both of them lost their control as well.

Hank shot a miserable glare at the other two, but focused on Chet, "What did you do to the shaving cream, Chet?" Hank growled as he angrily and slowly stalked at the lineman.

"Captain! Sir! Buddy! I swear!" Chet backed up, gasping as he laughed. "It wasn't meant for you!"

Hank lifted the shaving cream can and aimed it at Chet. "You better tell me what you did, Chet! And you better tell me how to get it off!"

Chet's mouth opened and his eyes bugged out of his head and he looked terrified, then squeaked, "I don't know?"

"KELLY!" Hank hollered and lunged at Chet who yelled and laughed and begged for mercy as he was attacked by his shaving cream wielding Captain.

More To Come...


	7. Chapter 7

**JOKESTER**

~)51(~

The bay doors opened automatically to let the squad back in. "Squad 51 at quarters," Johnny reported and then made a note for the log. "I smell something really good!"

"You're not off the hook you know!" Roy shouted as his partner vacated the squad and dashed off to the Rec Room. As he climbed out he heard Johnny's shrill shouting, "What The Hell Happened?" He broke into a fit of laughter.

Roy hurried in and saw quite a scene and threw his head back to laugh. There was shaving cream all over the floor and all over Chet, in his hair on his uniform, and there were blotches of bright apple green all over his face and arms. The poor man was cleaning shaving cream off the floor and he looked livid. "Go ahead, laugh all you like!" Chet growled as he wiped shave cream off the sofa.

"Well, isn't anyone gonna tell us what happened?" Roy demanded.

Marko explained it quickly to the new arrivals, having to stop to laugh a few times. "But poor Cap is really upset. You know we have an inspection today. He's already nervous enough."

"And now he's green." Johnny almost chocked with laughter. "Chet, I think maybe the Phantom should give it a rest."

Chet threw his wet rag down on the floor and it hit the tile with a squishy wet slap. He made a sound of frustration and glared at Johnny. "You know, that was supposed to have been you! I left the stuff in your locker! It was your brand!"

"Oh, so now its my fault?" Johnny laughed at poor Chet's pouting reaction.

Marko shot an accusatory glance at Chet. "I knew you did it, Chet! Why'd you try to deny it?"

"I didn't deny it! I said I didn't do it to the Captain! It was meant for Johnny!" Chet glared at the dark haired medic. "Either Cap got it out of your locker, or you figured it out and set me up so that..."

Johnny motioned with his hands, as he shook his head, 'No!' but before he could speak Hank's voice called out, "Gage! Desoto! Get in here!"

"Yeah, I knew that was coming," Roy headed out of the Rec room and Johnny followed. "I bet he wants to see if we can get that dye off him." Johnny took the hint and went to the squad to get a box.

Roy found his poor captain seated in the locker room head bowed. "Marko told us what happened."

"Good then you know what I want?" He didn't lift his head up.

"Johnny's bringing the stuff now." Roy paused. "Cap, let me see."

Hank deflated and lifted his head and took his hands away from his face. Roy couldn't help but to chuckle at the sight of a Captain with green dye on his face in the shape of a beard. Hank sighed and his eyes sparkled with understanding. "Of all the days for the Phantom to be on a rampage. We're getting inspected sometime around two, and he won't tell me how to get this off."

"This is a different color than what's on Chet." Roy noted, his tone business-like.

"Where's the can?" Johnny asked as he barged in. Hank pointed at the can sitting innocently on the back of the middle sink. Roy picked it up and studied the painted on label. Johnny set down the box and laughed at poor Hank. "Phantom got ya huh cap?"

"My shaving cream was empty," Hank looked defeated and miserable. "I asked Marko to loan me some but then his was empty too, so I went to your locker and..."

"...And intercepted the Phantom for me! Thanks Cap!" Johnny laughed as he tipped his glaring Captain's head back. He rubbed a cheek to see if anything would come off onto his hand.

"I should have known better." Hank grumped.

"It says right on here this is gag shaving cream and its non-toxic." Roy announced as he read the label. "So there's nothing dangerous in it, but the contents are not listed."

"A'right," Johnny nodded. "Gotcha." he took the can from Roy. "Gotta get you more green Cap." He took a hold of Hank's arm and before the man could object, Johnny let out a line of shave cream up near his inner elbow and went down halfway to his wrist.

"What did you do that for?" Hank half whined. "I don't want to be more green you twit!"

"Not a good idea to do tests on your face, now is it?" Johnny wiped away the shave cream and looked at the green line forming slowly. "Delayed reaction in the coloring. It must work with body chemistry."

Roy nodded. "That explains why this is a different green than what Kelly's got on himself. It probably won't come off with soap."

"No, it didn't. Alcohol didn't work either." Hank sighed.

"Lots more stuff to try, Cap." Johnny opened the black supply box, and chose a bottle...

.

Johnny got back to the kitchen and saw Chet had gotten the mess cleaned up, but he was now missing. "Where'd Chet go?"

"He's cleaning up Boot's dog piles in the back." Marko reported from behind his newspaper, and the paper wriggled as he snickered to himself.

"Any luck with Cap?" Mike inquired.

"Yeah, I got the right stuff on the third try. Never saw anyone look so relieved before in my life. Roy's helping him now," Johnny laughed as he took a triangle sandwich and ate half in one bite.

"I'll bet!" Mike chuckled.

Marko rattled his paper as he crumpled it down to his lap. "Hey! I almost forgot to tell you Nakee called." He pointed at the bulletin board and looked up at the clock. "She should be on her way here again right now!"

"Oh good, I can introduce her to Roy this time, I hope. He's about ready to strangle me cause I won't tell him anything about her." Johnny picked his message off the bulletin board and read it twice. "I don't believe this!"

"What is it?" Mike inquired.

"Ah, she was supposed to get a refund check from her student loans, but she's not getting it for another couple of weeks. Wasn't a lot of money but she was gonna use it to buy her nursing uniforms."

"If you can't come up with all that, Johnny, we'll help out." Marko offered and Mike nodded.

"That's really good of you guys," Johnny's tone rang with gratitude. "I got it covered though." He walked back out, and returned a few minutes later with several papers in hand. He grabbed a second sandwich just before the tones sounded.

"Squad 51, woman trapped..." the dispatcher called out an address. Johnny tossed the papers on the table. "Marko make sure she gets that!" He jogged off to the squad and noted a damp and no longer green Hank at the radio affirming the call while Roy climbed in the squad. They took off wailing down the road and Johnny sighed. Eventually he'd get to introduce his partner to his sister. Someday, he thought.

.

Within the Rec Room, Mike looked at the papers Johnny had left for Nakee. On the outside was a uniform voucher filled out for a pair of boots and three shirts. The note that Marko had written for Johnny explained Nakee wasn't getting her school money and she needed a loan of one hundred eighty nine dollars. But Johnny had written her a check for three hundred and fifty and left his driver's license. Mike's heart thumped. He turned over the note and saw Johnny's writing on the back, "Nakee get some groceries for us and bring me back twenty bucks in change." Below this was a list of grocery items.

"Us?" Mike realized that Nakee had to be staying at Johnny's place. The door rattled and Mike sat back pretending he hadn't been prying. Chet stepped in looking frazzled, and he still bore bright green blotches all over his face and arms. "Nakee is here!" He spotted the damp and no longer green Captain walking into the Rec Room and gasped, "Hey! Cap! How'd you get the dye off?"

"What was that you're asking me there, Pal?" Hank gave Chet a very innocent expression. "You finish cleaning up after the dog?"

"No sir." Chet miserably went back out. Mike felt a bit of self-satisfaction as Chet went back to his 'dog house.' But as he heard Nakee laughing and Chet talking outside his mood changed. Chet explained the whole story about the shaving cream to Nakee, and Mike waited for her to scold him, but instead, he heard. "Awwww...that's terrible! Oh! You poor thing!" Nakee cooed all of this in a sweet and gentle voice. Mike felt his eyeballs were going to pop out of his skull due to building pressure.

How, he thought, could she feel sorry for that..that...hooligan? He could stand it no more and had to look out the door, and didn't care if it was rude to stare!

"Oh come on over here!" Nakee practically sang this as she led Chet by one hand to the land rover. She dug a small bottle of clear pinkish liquid from her purse and soaked some into a tissue then tried to rub a spot on his chin. Chet held still smirking helplessly as she held his head in place. "Oh that's not working! I thought it would though." She let go of him and put the first bottle back and drew out another. "Maybe this might do something?" She pulled out a small tube, and slathered some greasy white cream on his cheek that smelled very pungent. Nakee saw what Chet did not; the white cream was turning green and pulling the colorful stain off his skin.

"That smells like girl stuff!"

"It IS girl stuff silly! But who cares what it smells like, as long as it works!" Nakee wiped it off his face with a tissue and showed him the resultant green goop now on the tissue. "See?" She laughed excitedly. "It worked!"

"Oh, thanks Nakee!" Chet said relieved. "What is that?"

"Cold cream."

"How do you get this stuff off?"

"You wipe it off with a tissue."

"I mean the smell!"

Nakee laughed at the question and squeezed his arm with both her hands to let him know she thought he was silly. "You can be green or you can smell like a flower for a little while!"

"Well..." Chet looked uncertain, but decided to go along with her, "I guess it's...better to smell like a flower."

"Oh! Now what might be amiss o'r a strapping Irish lad smelling sweet as the morn?" Nakee teased, and Chet laughed at her badly done accent.

Within the Rec Room, Mike realized he was gripping the table so hard he was hurting his knuckles. He wasn't the only one looking out the door. While he was glaring at Chet, Hank was glaring at both of the chatterers. He didn't want to be rude to the girl, but felt she'd hung around enough that day. She probably didn't realize that her naturally flirtatious personality was very distracting to his men. None of them were currently working, and that included himself and the chief was due soon and there was work that needed to be done. Beautiful or not, she was a worse pest than her brother. He didn't need two Gages. "Do either of you know why she's here again?"

Marko turned from the stove, mouth full. He pointed at the papers on the table. Hank picked them up and glanced at the check, "That is a lot of..." he trailed off into silence, realizing that it was none of his business. He only looked at the papers enough to be sure he had everything in hand.

Mike watched through the door as Chet let the girl attempt to clean his other cheek for him. They were having far too much fun and somehow this just made his blood boil. Chet said something no one could hear in the Rec Room, but Nakee let out a very delighted squeal of laughter. Mike really wanted an excuse to go hurt Chet, "Cap, I'll take that to her."

Hank shot a wide-eyed look at him that suggested he thought Mike was crazy, or thought he was. He went out the back and called, "Miss Gage?"

She trotted straight too him and he noted she was still wearing the sweats Johnny had loaned to her. Hank handed her the papers, and made sure Johnny's license went into her hand and that she knew what he was giving to her. She looked at the check and then gasped and squealed as she hugged him and kissed his cheek very loudly. "Oh! Nice and smooth this time around Captain!" she giggled musically, leaving him dazed and now chuckling helplessly. She bounced happily on her toes. "I know you won't give him a kiss from me, but..."

"I could tell him, thank you!" Hank was no longer angry with her now for showing up and distracting his men. In fact, he was smiling like a Cheshire cat and he laughed in a charming tone that made Mike feel sick. Hank was all business though, and found a way to get rid of her without being rude, "You better get going, Miss Gage! The banks close today at three o'clock."

"OH! Thanks for telling me!" she jogged to the land rover and plopped in the driver's seat. "Chet you can keep that stuff!"

"Thanks Nakee!" Chet yelled. He had a green tube in hand and waved as she turned the land rover around and drove away. Chet noticed Hank's glare and nervously tucked the tube in his shirt pocket and fetched his rake and shovel to resume dog pile clean up. "Cap, you know that wasn't meant for you!"

"You'd still be out here had it been Johnny," Hank shot at him, but then sighed at Chet's pitiful expression. "Go get cleaned up before the chief gets here! Just make sure you come back and finish this."

"Yessir!" Chet dashed off before Hank could change his mind.

More To Come...


	8. Chapter 8

JOKESTER

~)51(~

Nakee was carrying a box and a big bag out of a uniform supply store and a brown haired girl with a very greek apearance was right behind her carrying a second box. "So you start tomorow Nakee?"

"Yes, I'll be working in the ER, at least to start with." She stepped off the curb and opened the back hatch of the land rover. The other girl helped her to put all of her packages into the back. "Gail, I wonder if I might ever run into you."

"If you'll be in the ER we'll definetly run into each other. Tomorow in fact!" she said excitedly. "I'm there every Tuesday from two until ten doing Xrays. But you know you can always come to Xray and visit. I'm still pretty new their so we might get a lot of the same kind of terrible hours."

Nakee laughed at this and nodded. "Hey, let me have your phone number."

"Sure!" The other woman took a pen from her pocket and Nakee wrote the number on one of her boxes. The girl gave her a second number as well. "That's the number to Xray, Nakee. You call me and we'll have lunch sometime."

Nakee smiled broadly, but her attention was immediatly drawn away as she heard the sirens. She looked and saw an ambulance racing by and squad 51 was right behind it. Nakee waved as she smiled.

.

Johnny saw his sister wave, but was going too fast to trust having only one hand on the steering wheel, especially with the turn coming up. But he did see that she had white boxes in the back of his land rover and was glad she'd gotten the money all right. He'd started to worry when he'd found out the banks were closing early. Now he could relax about that and stick to worrying about keeping his eyes on the road. He turned the corner, following the ambulance. Within another minute the emergency vehicles were wailing into Rampart's parking lot.

.

A beep of a horn from the back lot alerted Hank to the arrival of their inspecting Cheif. He'd been doing the best he could all morning to try not to be ridiculously nervous, because he knew the guys hated that. Still, they knew he wasn't as calm as he appeared, maybe because he was doing the dishes when it wasn't his turn. He dried off his hands quickly. "Everyone Line up!" Hank yelled as he jogged to the cupboard in the bay for his hat. Marko and Mike were just ahead of him and got to the door first. Mike struggled with the handle. "Ah...someone shut it wrong again! It's stuck!"

Hank got behind his engineer ready to offer to help, but Mike gave the knob a hard twist and then yanked and...

CLICK! CLICK! SPLAT!

All three men gasped as water hit their faces and ran down their fronts. Hank felt his blood pressure rise. Mike and Marko were stiff and frozen in place, and worried about the inspection cheif they could hear coming through the door. Very slowly all three men turned around to look at their final shift-mate who was lagging behind.

"No way!" Chet hollered as he took in the scene. "Don't even look at me! Don't even think it! I did NOT do that!"

Hank seemed ready to throttle him though, and his voice came out as a growl through his clenched teeth. "Get your hats on! Not one word!" He knew that Cheif Brennings was going to have a feild day laughing at them. There was no helping it now though, he yanked his hat out of the cupboard and jammed it on his head. The three dripping men lined up and Chet tried to keep his distance from a rather soggy and irritated Marko. He grabbed a hat and got in line as he hissed, "It Was Not Me!"

Chief Brennings walked into the bay, his uniform was sharp and well decorated and his dark eyes and craggy middle-aged face appeared quite young as he smiled broadly while taking in the scene of three wet men before him. Hank miserably tried to act like nothing was wrong at all as he greeted, "Chief Brennings, welcome to station..." Brennings burst into helpless laughter and bent over clutching his belly. "...Fifty-one." Hank muttered this last and shot a glare at the only dry man in the line up.

.

Johnny spent the entire trip from Rampart to the station in his log book and deliberatly ignored Roy's questions, coming at him repeatedly. "You're not gonna tell me about that girl?"

Johnny lifted his nose out of the log book and shouted at his nagging partner, "I WILL! Just not right now! Would you let me get this done!"

"There's a beautiful girl using your car and you won't tell me who she is?"

"I SAID I WILL TELL YOU!" Johnny roared.

"Then tell me!"

"I didn't say now!"

"I never knew you to let any woman drive your car before even the ones you dated for more than two weeks!"

"I let her use my car cause I know she's a good driver!"

"How?" Roy demanded loudly. "How do you know she's a good driver?"

"Cause I taught her how to drive! Now shut up and let me think!"

Roy did a double take at this comment and might have liked to persue this issue. He'd stopped in front of the station though and the bay door was opening and traffic was patiently waiting for him to get out of the way. He turned the wheel and backed into the station carefully, then cut the engine. "You taught her to drive?" Roy climbed out of the squad. "First she's not a girl but you taught her to drive?"

Johnny got out of the squad with his log book and set it open on the vehicle's hood while he ignored Roy and neatly made the notes.

"JOHNNY! Come on!" Roy demanded.

"ALL RIGHT!" Johnny shouted out angrily. "Cripes! You just aren't going to give it up are you?"

"NO! I'm not going to give up! Who is she?"

Johnny's eyes flashed angrily but it was a sign that he'd finally given up and given in. "The girl you saw this morning was...uh..."

"Well?" Roy commanded.

Johnny twitched nervously, "She's a..."

"Gage!" Hank called as he stepped out of the Rec room. "Chief's here, and he's asking you to make a pot of coffee."

"Uhhh..." Johnny looked around the squad at Hank, noting he was very damp and very annoyed, and beyond him on the other end of the bay he spotted Chet mopping up a puddle of water. He looked back at Hank, then at Roy, mouth open.

Hank motioned angrily toward the Rec Room, "Would you just get in here and make coffee?"

"Ok, Cap!" Johnny slapped his log book shut, dropped it on the squad's front seat and trotted off to the rec room.

Wide eyed with exasperation, Roy ran his hands through his hair and shook himself. He pushed his way into the locker room and once the door was shut he let out an exasperated, "AAARGH!"

Out in the bay, Chet heard Roy's noisy exasperation and agreed as he wrung out his mop into a bucket. "Yer telling me, man."

.

Within the Rec Room Johnny was doing his best to just make the coffee. He focused intently on cleaning the bitter leftover dregs out of the pot with warm water. He tried to not look at Marko and Mike who were both very wet and leaning uncomfortably on a space of counter by the door. Marko's normally tanned complexion seemed ashen with worry, while Mike's eyes darted constantly to the left and right as if waiting for something to happen. Johnny already guessed one of Chet's jokes had gotten the other three guys at a bad time. Carl Phillips was seated on one end of the square table, pouring over some paper work with his usual haughty sneer lingering around his upper lip. Chief Brennings was chatting with Hank by the chalk board, laughing at him, calling him 'kid' and telling him to remember their 'good old days.' Johnny recited to himself over and over, 'just make the coffee.' He was making a supreme effort to keep himself from laughing as he carefully measured coffee grounds into the basket.

"OH! Those were good days, kid! Good days!" The Chief boisterously shouted and slapped Hank's wet sleeved arm almost hard enough to knock him off balance. Hank stood there with a helpless and embarrassed grimace etching into his features. "AAAH! Don't be such a sour puss, Kid!" Brennings cried out. "You're reminding me of that one guy that always had a look on his face when he wasn't eating. And he was Always eating! You remember him, dontcha?"

Hank stiffened and turned around to shoo Marko and Mike out. "Go change!" Neither of them had to be told twice. They scrammed out the door as fast as they could run. Hank glared at Johnny as if he wanted to make him leave too, but the paramedic was doing what he'd been told to do. Hank turned back to the chief, and muttered, "Are you talking about Martin?"

"Oh! Yeah!" Brennings took off his white chief's cap and tucked it under his arm. "Lousy mouthy jerk that guy. Acting like he thought he had the right to tell people what to do cause his dear daddy was a chief. You remember a couple times my wife brought stuff in and the slob ate it all! He was really one son of a...well I know that you know, kid, you were there on the receiving end enough times to know. I also happen to know you were the reason he ended up glued to the toilet seat!" The man burst into hysterical laughter.

Johnny had to clap a hand over his mouth to retain his silence and he nearly dropped the coffee pot in the sink. He did not dare to turn around or act like he could hear a word. He hastily put the coffee pot on the burner, and fled from the room as quickly as good manners would allow. He could feel his Captain glaring at his back all the way out, and knew without having to hear it that Hank wanted to holler at him to keep his mouth shut about knowing he'd glued someone to a toilet seat. Johnny dashed off at a jog through the open back door, around the corner of the station to lean against the red brick wall and giggle maniacally as he attempted to smother the noise with his hands. He could not beleive that Captain Stanley had ever glued someone to a toilet seat!

.

"Coffee's done!" Johnny's voice rang out into the bay. The guys all came running for it, except for Chet who hung miserably in the shadows of the storage closet while he put all the equipment back to rights. Hank came out of the locker room buttoning a dry shirt and saw his lineman pouting pathetically. He had no idea why he was such a nice guy, but he couldn't help it. Chet had a way of slumping his shoulders that made him feel bad. "Chet you can..." he sighed. "...finish that later. Come and have coffee with the rest of us."

Something thumped in the closet and Chet's shoulders leveled back to their normal height. He followed the rest of the guys into the Rec Room for the coffee, glad he wouldn't be left with the last cold dregs. Hank had been really upset at first about the water catapult but things had turned out all right. The Chief was actually in a very good humor because the joke had brought him back down memory lane. He decided to not make Chet clean the tile grout in the locker room after all. Finishing the cupboard would be enough.

"Ah, he's back and looking a little happier now that he's dry again!" Brennings laughed from the head of the table which was Hank's usual place. Carl Phillips at the other end, as usual when a chief was present, acting like a human being rather than a snide, self-important prince. Johnny brought the first two cups of coffee to the table for the two senior men and Marko put the cream and sugar within easy reach. Brennings stirred a little sugar and cream into his coffee and after a sip he grunted and smiled with satisfaction and leaned back in the chair. "Ah, that's the stuff, Gage!" He sipped more of it and looked at Hank, still standing up. "Stanley, you know you got us chiefs fighting over who gets to come here during A-shift just to get a shot at this guy's coffee?" He pointed at Gage, and all the guys standing around the counter with him all glanced at him and Johnny wondered if this was a good thing or not.

"Uh, no, I didn't know that." Hank pulled out the chair that was usually Johnny's and sat down. Too late, he realized there was something squishy on the chair

"PBBBBBLLLT-PFFFT!" Came a rich and colorful melody from beneath him. It sounded almost like a perfect foghorn. Horrified, Hank's jaw went slack and he froze with humiliation. Brennings immediatly broke into giggles and leaned forward over his coffee, trying and failing to control himself. And all his men promptly acted as if they had not heard anything at all.

"Well, excuse yourself, Captain!" Carl sniveled from the other end of the table.

Hank clamped his mouth shut before he could tell the little Weasle to shut his sneering face. He reached beneath himself and pulled up the whoopee cushion and grimaced at it. He'd seen it around the station often enough to know who it belonged to. It was Chet's. He glared at the lineman who looked back, shocked and shook his head. Brennings saw the offending object in Hank's hand and his muffled giggles became great guffaws and tears spilled down his reddening cheeks. Three of his men cleared out of the room so quickly, Hank was amazed they didn't leave fire trails. His junior paramedic spat his coffee in the sink, and ran away laughing out the back door. He could hear him snickering somewhere outside, while his other guys were cracking up out in the bay so loudly he feared they would need medical help. Even the sneering Carl Phillips was laughing. But Hank was not the Only one that was not laughing. Chet was still there, mouth open in some horrific expression. He shouted, "It was NOT me!"

More To Come...


	9. Chapter 9

JOKESTER

~)51(~

Nakee swore as she came driving around the corner and spotted both the squad and the Engine coming down the road with sirens wailing and lights flashing. For a moment she parked so the two trucks could go by. First the squad honked and then Mike blew the air horn. She smiled and honked the horn back at them, and after another moment they were gone around the turn and she sighed. She'd come to this side of town for nothing then. The fire station's bay door shut by itself and that left the station locked up tight. She wouldn't dare to leave a bag at the back door with Johnny's driver's license in it. But maybe they wouldn't be gone too long. She pulled the rover back onto the road, and headed for a sandwich shop she'd seen earlier in the day.

A few minutes later, Nakee drove into the station's parking lot and tucked the rover in between two other smaller vehicles. She unwrapped a big sandwich and nipped a tomato slice off, then opened a quart container of chocolate milk. The shop owner had guessed almost instantly that she was related to Johnny and talked her ear off for nearly ten minutes, "You look just like him too, but quite a lot prettier than he is!" The woman had said.

Nakee unfolded the newspaper and absently ate her late lunch. And almost didn't take note of the red car that pulled into the lot. She stopped chewing and watched in the rearview with one chipmunked cheek while that vile sneering man she'd seen earlier stepped out of the vehicle and then got in through the back door with a key. She turned around to look at this, thinking, if he wasn't such a creepy little weasel she wouldn't mind asking him if she could go in with him. But she wanted nothing to do with him at all and decided to eat her sandwich and hope he didn't notice her.

But twenty minutes later, her sandwich was long gone and she knew he was doing more than a quick errand. Another ten more minutes and she began to doubt the guys would be back soon. She really couldn't wait anymore. There was a lot of things still left to do, and like it or not she would have to deal with him. Within her purse she had Johnny's driver's license, and the twenty bucks in change he'd asked her to set aside for him. With any of the other guys she would have just handed it over, but not with this guy. She wrote a quick note back to Johnny, stating the amount of money, then wrapped both license and the money in a sheet of paper, folding it in such a way that if it got opened, Johnny would know it. She grabbed the bag with his new shirts and shoes in it, and a bakery box full of donuts that was still wrapped tight with the string.

She crossed the lot and knocked on the back door. The sleaze didn't answer, so she tried the knob, but it was locked. "Hello?" she called, and then repeated the greeting and knocked again, then shouted, "I know you're here. I see your car out here!"

The sneering man came into the Rec room looking so surprised that he'd forgotten to sneer. With clipboard in hand and pen in his mouth, he spoke.

"Sorry. What?" Nakee looked at him directly.

He tucked the pen behind his ear. "I said, what brings you here, Miss...uh...?"

"Miss Gage," she decided not to give him her first name. She set the uniform bag down on the nearest chair and put the bakery box in the refrigerator. "I just wanted to drop off some things for my brother."

"Oh? All right. Just leave them and I'll see to it that they are received."

"That's all right. I'm sure he'll find it." She tucked the folded paper with Johnny's license and money inside one of his new work boots. While she did this, the man pretended to be going over something on the clipboard, but she knew better. He was secretly looking at her in a way that was sneaky and she just didn't like it. She rolled the bag shut then and left it on a chair. The sooner she could get out, the better, she thought, and turned on her heal for the door. "Thank you. Bye!"

"Bye!" he seemed relieved.

Nakee shut the door, thinking how weird that had been. But, firemen were human too and not all humans were normal. She drove away relieved that he'd not tried to talk with her. Nothing creeped her out more than a weirdo like that trying to pretend that he was, in fact, not a creep.

.

~)51(~

Stanley;

I left some paper work in the office. And John's sister stopped by.

Mr. Carl Philips, Administrative Assistant

Roy pulled the note off the refrigerator and stared at it. Carl's curvy handwriting didn't faze him; the tone of the letter didn't surprise him. Seeing the omission of Hank's title while Carl made a big deal of his own low ranking position was very expected of the man. But he reread the word's 'John's sister' three times and then said it aloud, "John's sister?"

His partner was just pushing through the door at that moment, and Roy waved the note at him. "You have a sister?"

"Huh?" Johnny asked loudly, confused, he saw the paper in Roy's hand.

Roy yelled the next question, "Was that girl your sister?"

"Man!" Johnny's brows went down and he snatched the note out of his partner's hand, read it quickly and growled. "That guy is an absolute di..."

"Don't you dare change the subject again!" Roy warned loudly and carried on angrily. "That's who that girl was! Why didn't you just tell me who she was? Why were you trying to keep her a secret from me? That's why she was so familiar! That's how you knew I could never have met her before! Now I know why she's driving your car! And now I know why you think she's not a girl! I get it now! I don't know why I didn't already guess for myself. I should have known! She's got the same gawky pigeon toed feet as you! Why didn't I know though? Why didn't I know you had a sister?"

Johnny's mouth worked and he put his hands to his chest. But Roy wasn't about to let him get a word in edgewise. "All this time! All day long I kept asking you who she was, where have I seen her before? Why she was so familiar and you kept changing the subject! Why didn't you want me to know about her? I've known you nearly three years and you never told me you had a sister! What was so hard about telling me she's your sister?"

Johnny might have tried to answer, but Roy still wasn't going to let him talk. "All you had to say was a few little words! That's all you had to do! Just open your mouth and..."

"Roy," Hank called smoothly from the doorway. "John wanted to introduce you to her personally," he stepped in the room casually. "How'd you find out? He asked all of us to not tell you because he wanted to surprise you with a proper introduction."

Though Johnny gave his Captain a look of gratitude for his interruption, the admonition did nothing to appease Roy's anger. The senior medic almost stamped a foot as he shouted at his partner, "Instead of all the misdirection and changing the subject and leading me around in circles you could have just told me you wanted to introduce me to her in person!"

Johnny sighed and handed the paper to Hank. The captain took the note and scowled at it as he read. "I really hate that guy." He squashed the note and whipped it at the trashcan, then walked off to his office muttering to himself, "Swear it must make him happy to make everyone else miserable!"

Roy was staring at his partner now, waiting for him to talk, but Johnny just looked glum and disappointed. "Why is it that in three years you never once mentioned you had a sister? Why?"

Johnny sighed and his shoulders slumped. "It just never came up in conversation until last week when she got here!" He deflated sadly. "I really, really wanted you to meet her in person. I think it would have worked if not for the Weasel. I would have been able to introduce you both tomorrow, or maybe even tonight sometime."

"Three years I've known you and you never mentioned her!" Roy growled angrily. "I cannot believe that you never once even hinted at her! And don't give me any bull about how she just never came up in conversation! I don't buy that at all!"

Hank came in the kitchen with a clipboard in hand and a grimace on his face, he passed between the two paramedics, giving Roy the sort of look that was telling him 'That's enough!' "Making me do this over again! Absolute nitpicking twit that man! I already copied this over twice!" Hank lifted the coffee pot and found it empty. He was in too much of a foul mood to be nice, especially after the stunt with the whoopee cushion, and he demanded, "Gage make some coffee!"

"Sure Cap." Johnny didn't complain at all about having to make so much coffee. Hank always asked him to make it when he was trying not to be in a foul mood—but he wasn't getting any happier. Everyone knew that Chet's last joke with the whoopee cushion had probably destroyed Hank's temperament for the rest of the shift. While Hank started to sit in his chair, he thought better of it and looked down at the seat first. This left Johnny with his jaw clenched tight in an effort to stop himself laughing at the memory of the Whoopee cushion. He was failing miserably though and getting a very evil glare from Hank. The Captain really could not get annoyed with Johnny as he did not have a legal reason for it, but had to yell at someone just then. He shouted,

"KELLY!"

The loud shouting shut down Johnny's helpless chuckling at least. Chet came jogging into the room. "Yeah Cap?"

"Put the dishes away!" he ordered, shuffling his paper work irritably.

"Cap! That's not fair! It was Johnny's turn and..."

"Are you arguing with me, Kelly?" Hank tone and his angry scowl were both serious warnings.

"Uh...Nossir!" He squeaked, and took the dishes from the drainer two at a time and gently put them away, fearing recrimination should he make too much noise. But he was glaring hatefully at Gage who was making the coffee. Who better to set him up than his own Pigeon, he thought. It had to be him. He'd found out about the shaving cream and taken the Cap's so that he'd go into someone else's locker. He could very easily have set up the water catapult and more than likely had put the whoopee cushion on his own chair. While the other guys filed in, he looked at them all and just knew; only Gage could be setting him up. Marko didn't have it in him, Mike was too subdued, Cap just didn't have time, and Roy was too mature.

Johnny put the coffee pot on the burner and then went to get the cream from the refrigerator, and spotted a bakery box. "All right!" he smiled from ear to ear and opened it up to see a dozen custard filled confections.

"What?" Roy asked in a growl.

"My sister brought us goodies." Johnny pulled the box out of the fridge onto the table and broke the string away and opened it. Within were at least two-dozen custard and jelly filled donuts and a lot of them were frosted with chocolate.

At the sight of his favorite sort of goodies, Roy forgot to be mad at Johnny—for the moment.

"All right!" Chet grinned, forgetting he was supposed to be mad at Gage as well.

Hank pricked up his brows at the sight of the donuts and looked to Roy, still grouchy, "Why don't you set the table?"

Roy just nodded. He knew Hank was trying to distract him from further harassment of his partner.

"This must be for you too, Gage," Hank motioned at the white bag on the seat to his left. Johnny dug into it while Roy collected small plates and coffee cups.

Chet was standing hungrily over the donut box and Hank took notice, "Kelly you done with the dishes?"

"Uh...not ye..."

"When you're done you can go sweep the bay again."

"But? Cap!" Chet motioned at the donuts. He sounded on the verge of tears. "Why won't you believe me? It wasn't..."

"When you're done with the bay you can polish the door knobs, and clean the windows inside and out!"

"God!" Chet glared at Gage then who was now nosing through a bag that was on the chair. "I know it was you Gage! I know you're setting me up! Do it one more time! Just..."

"I am NOT setting you up Chet!" Johnny argued back at him holding a new shoe in one hand from which he'd pulled a folded up paper.

Hank yelled out, "KELLY!"

Chet looked non-chalantly at his Captain and asked, "Polish the mirrors?"

"Not a bad idea. You can do that right after you sweep the bay." Hank's pen scribbled at a furious speed and he didn't look at Chet's angry and hurt mask of confusion. "And if you think up any more chores I'll be glad to let you..."

Chet didn't stay to listen to anymore. He headed out into the bay, shutting out the noise of his Captain's last words with the door and did not care if he had been rude. He went to the cupboard to get the broom, walked past Marko and Mike who were chatting by the engine while they cleaned up some equipment. He didn't bother to even look at Mike because he knew he'd get a dirty look. The supply cupboard's door was stuck. The knob just would not turn. He tried both hands on the knob and leveraged his leg against the other door and pulled as hard as he could. "MMMPH!"

Roy stepped out of the Rec room, "You guys we got donuts in here and coffee is almost done."

Chet rattled the cupboard door angrily, putting all his aggression into the twisting of the knob, but failing to make it open.

"Something wrong?" Roy asked, and expected Chet to yell at him.

"Door's stuck." Chet tried to twist the knob the other way, but he was only hurting his hands. "GAH!" He let go and looked at the red skin on his palms.

Roy stepped up behind him too look over his shoulder at the damage, then asked, "Want me to try?"

"Sure."

Roy hesitated though, "Did you put another water bomb in there?"

"No! Man, I swear my only prank was the shaving cream! I swear!" Chet was pleading for him to believe this.

Roy didn't answer though. He twisted the doorknob with furious force, face turning various shades of pink in the attempt. He exhaled explosively. "Boy that's really jammed."

"Glad it didn't make a liar out of me at least." Chet nodded at the door appreciatively.

"Mike has a knack of getting this thing opened, let's get him to try." Roy called, "Hey Mike!"

The engineer came forward, arms crossed, clipboard in hand, brows up. "Yeah?"

"Can you get this open?" Roy requested as he motioned at the closet.

Mike looked skeptically at the closet and then leveled a warning look at Chet." "Last two times that thing was stuck, I got hosed. You open it this time, Chet!"

"I already tried!" Chet half argued. "Come on! I know you can get it open!"

Mike rolled his eyes and shook his head, and let off an, 'I don't believe I'm doing this,' expression. He gave his clipboard to Roy to hold, and went to the cupboard and tried to turn the knob, but it was really stuck. "It's never been stuck this bad before. Who keeps shutting it without lifting it up?"

The other men all shrugged their answer and gave 'not me' looks to the engineer. Mike tried again, rattling one door violently. "Chet, I better not end up wet if I open this for you."

"You know Mike, I don't know who's been doing this stuff today but it wasn't me! The only joke I pulled was with the shaving cream and you know that wasn't meant for the Captain."

"Right," Mike's tone was sarcastic. But he took a hold of both doorknobs and twisted one while he lifted up on the other and rattled the two doors until he heard a 'click' as the latch fell into the proper place. Mike didn't have to open it after all and he stepped out of the way, "There you go, Chet. You can open it this time."

Chet pulled it open, and a helmet fell out and clattered to the floor. There was no sudden splash of water. Mike and Roy both seemed disappointed and shot a look at each other while Chet reached in to fetch the broom. But it was on the wrong side of the cupboard. Actually, everything was in the wrong order, and some items seemed to have been haphazardly tossed in, and a few helmets belonging to the off duty men were on the cupboard floor. Rather than complain about this to people who probably did not want to hear from him, he simply began to put it all back in order.

The Rec room door swung open and Johnny called them all to get coffee and donuts. First Mike and then Roy and then Marko departed the bay, but Chet remained in the cupboard, sorting boots. Johnny pushed the door open enough to poke out his head and call, "Chet, come on and have a donut and some coffee."

Chet paused a moment, then leaned his rosy nose around the cupboard door in time to see the paramedic retreat. He kicked a helmet back in and with the ease of mindless habit, shut the doors properly and trotted into the kitchen. He was just in time to get the last of the good ones with the custard filling.

More To Come...


	10. Chapter 10

JOKESTER

~)51(~

The sound of loud frying was coming out of the open Rec Room door, and Hank was talking to himself as he cooked a very delicious smelling dinner. Everyone knew that it was best to not pay any attention to him when he was talking to himself. It was better to let him mutter all he liked and keep quiet while he conversed openly with himself. His odd muttering meant headquarters was giving him a hard time—or more accurately Carl Phillips was giving him hell about his paper work and mercilessly demanding him to copy things over.

'BAM!' Hank slammed a cupboard door shut. Everyone also knew that when the Captain was slamming things, that it was best to tread very lightly and look busy. His occasional slamming of plates and drawers had caused every man on the crew to seek out a task that would make him look busy.

A metal pan crashed loudly and Hank growled something about lunatics and weasels, and after a moment, he actually answered his own comment. Everyone was extremely well aware that when Hank was slamming things 'and' actually arguing with himself, it was best to simply hide altogether, and also proceed to do work while staying out of sight. That way if Hank came along and spotted a hiding man who was busy, he would not end up picking fleas off the dog with a pair of tweezers.

Mike was polishing the Engine's already very shiny silver fenders with a rag that was barely finding any dirt. It was not a great chore, but the grouchy Captain wouldn't invent something for him to do. Mike didn't like the idea of having to help Chet polish doorknobs and scrub trashcans. There really wasn't anything for Chet to complain about though. He was not being punished. Hank was angry enough to keep him busy, but not mad enough to make him do anything horrible. Marko was in the bathroom now taking his turn cleaning the latrine after all.

"You gonna tell me about her?" Mike paused in mid-polish to lean around the engine. He saw that it was Roy who'd spoken. Johnny was by the squad; sitting on his heals in front of one of the medical boxes, sorting bandages. The younger man looked up at his standing partner, and questioned, "I'm forgiven?"

"No." Roy sat down on the Squad's running board with the logbook open on his lap. Like Johnny and Mike, he was hiding out and pretending to be busy. "What's your sister's name?"

Johnny's paused a moment, and he cleared his throat before enunciating, "Enakowahanahai."

Mike let the sound of the name wash over him. He wished he could say it as easily as Johnny could, but he didn't even comprehend it. Roy fumbled the name badly, "Ekohaha who high?"

Johnny laughed delighted. "Nakee. You can call her Nakee."

"Nakee Gage?"

"Yep."

Roy laughed at this. "That is a really cute name."

Mike felt a jolt of anger. Nakee was a cute name and if he could have, he would have kept it locked up in a safe so no one else could listen to it. Mad now, he needed someone to glare at and looked down the bay at Chet who'd been sweeping the same space of clean floor for the last ten minutes, but it was in a part of the bay least visible from the Rec room. Hank probably would not care if Chet stood there all night and swept that spot just so long as he didn't pull any more pranks. Mike thought, if it hadn't been for Chet he might have gotten a date with Nakee. He was still mad at him for the water catapult from that morning. The conversation about Nakee drew him to listen to the two paramedics.

"She's a nurse?" Roy asked sounding surprised.

"Yeah." Johnny answered.

"At Rampart?"

"Yeah."

"Seriously?"

"Very."

"Oh! So she's the one that made the coffee at Rampart earlier today, didn't she?"

"Yeah."

"All right! I wanna hear this. From the beginning. When did all this happen, or start to happen with yer sister?"

"Oh...uh...well, when she was born..."

"Don't be a wise guy! You know what I mean!" Roy punctuated the remark by lightly slapping the top of Johnny's head.

Johnny laughed and rubbed his cuffed head. Mike made no attempt to hide the fact he was listening in. They knew Chet was listening too because he was sweeping his way toward them. Mike wondered what the paramedic was going to say to his partner about Nakee visiting his place. "Remember last week I looked after Mike?"

"Yeah."

"I called home from there. Figured I should let my Aunt and Uncle know where I was in case they tried to call. But my sister answers the phone and she tells me she's done with school, got her nursing license, and is going to Rampart to put in her application. So, I asked her to go to my apartment and get me some clothes and bring them by, and come over and talk. A while later she shows up and tells me that it was Dixie McCall who handed her the application form, and got her hired before she was half-done filling things out."

"Well, all right!" Roy cried out delighted. "It helps to have a big brother in good with them."

Johnny laughed. "I guess it does. Anyway, she visited for half the day. She said the reason she was applying to Rampart was to get in a program that pays off her student loan after she's worked their for two years. And she got a Bachelor's degree in nursing, and lived off campus, so she's got a hefty bill to pay. She starts tomorrow."

"Mike and Dixie knew about your sister since last week? Am I the only one that didn't know about her?" Roy grumbled this with a scowl.

Johnny's voice was high with objection. "I told you! I wanted you to meet her in person and introduce you."

"Why didn't you just bring her by my place?" Roy demanded.

Johnny found a length of gauze had come unwound and began to fix it as he carried on a civilized tone, "Last week she didn't stay. She only just got to town officially yesterday, and you weren't around now were you? We were at my place all day sorting things out and I called your house at least ten times. I was gonna fish for an invite to dinner and..."

Roy huffed and did a double take. "She's living with you in that tiny apartment?"

Johnny fumbled. "Well...you know...she's not gonna stay there forever. Besides, she doesn't have anywhere else to go! She's flat broke."

"Just hope things don't go as badly for her as they did for me when I stayed with you a few weeks ago."

"Oh that's different and you know it!" Johnny griped. "I came up with a solution for us anyway. We cleaned out my living room closet. You saw how big that is. Got a window in there and an outlet, and those shelves that are built into the back and..."

"She's not living in your closet is she?" Roy objected.

"NO! She's not living in the closet! Just her stuff! God! Why do you wanna irritate me so bad?"

"Cause you deserve it!"

"Oh be quiet." Johnny tucked away the now wound up roll of gauze, and fiddled with some small boxes. He bent his head down in a sulky manner.

Roy interrupted his partner's pouting by asking, "So where's she sleeping? I hope not on that pull out thing that you have the nerve to call a bed."

Johnny looked up. "No, Nakee's not sleeping on..." Something clattered from the Rec Room. Johnny looked up, owl eyed with nervousness. Mike was prepared to suddenly look as if he was trying to kill himself to make the engine spotless. "...on the pullout bed. She sleeps on the couch. Anyway, while I'm here on duty she's got the place to herself. She'll sleep in the bed tonight."

"You must've gotten lost trying to clean out all that junk you had in that closet."

Johnny laughed hollowly. "Yeah. I had a lot of junk in there all right. Everything I didn't want anymore I just threw in there. When I first moved in to that building, people saw I hardly had anything and they gave me stuff they didn't want anymore. And you know I been living there for the last four years, and I the junk multiplies when I'm not home or something. Me and Nakee pulled out all that stuff and looked it all over. Both of us were wondering what the heck to do with it all. You know, stuff like curtains that don't fit the windows, and dishes that I don't need. I had these two big shallow pitcher things with little platters stuck on the bottom and even Nakee had no clue what they were for. She said to me that she emptied out her old apartment by selling everything to a second hand store and some of those places will send a truck."

Roy nodded as he clipped papers to the back cover of the log's binder. Mike listened to the pleasant meaningless banter while cleaning a part of the engine that was actually a bit dirty.

Johnny looked up at his partner, "By the way, she tried to sleep on that pull out bed last night and," he sighed heavily. "She said it was the worst thing she'd ever had to sleep on in her life and that I should get rid of it before it ate someone."

Mike had to laugh along with Roy who nearly bust a gut over this bit of news. Even Chet shyly snickered from a safe distance, and they heard Marko chuckle too. He was listening with the latrine door open while he cleaned. Johnny rolled his eyes and blushed and then laughed along with the guys. Mike polished his way around the engine, looking for an excuse to get closer to the talk. Another clatter of noise shot out of the kitchen, and everyone warily froze, waiting for Cap to emerge looking like an angry demon on the hunt. Anyone not busy doing something would end up picking fleas off Boot. But nothing happened. They heard only the sound of a heavy hunk of meat being turned over in a pan and hissing loudly as it fried.

"Anyway," Johnny pushed some bandage boxes into their proper order. "She called a second hand store. You know that really big one that's up on Canary Street?"

"Uh...? Oh yeah!" Roy nodded. "My wife shops there, but I don't remember the name."

"I know the place," Mike seated himself on one side of the engine, polishing rag in hand. "The Used Barn."

"Yeah, that's it." Johnny wagged a finger at Mike, and nodded. "These two big barrel chested guys came in with boxes and moving gear and cleaned out all that junk in less than twenty minutes." At a brows-up look from Roy, he said pointedly, "And the stupid fold up bed went too."

The admonition generated laughter all around the station, and Johnny rolled his eyes. "They filled up their whole truck. I thought they'd give me twenty bucks at the most if they were feeling generous. But they said eighty bucks cash, or a hundred and sixty in store credit. I took the store credit and let Nakee have it all. And I thought she'd go and get herself a bunch of new clothes, I mean..." he twitched his head and shoulder. "I...uh, know you guys had to see her dress was kind of...ah...little threadbare." he cleared his throat and didn't look up at anyone. "And she did get some stuff, but she went into the home department and bought curtains and all these little shelves and lamps and some goofy looking rugs. I don't even know what half of it was, or why she wanted it, but I did let her have the run of that money. I know better than to argue with her about it when she wants things her way. She would probably let herself die from oxygen deprivation rather than stop arguing before she's gotten her way and..."

Roy broke in with a jovial comment, "She's a Gage all right!" Chet and Mike laughed, and Marko could be heard chuckling in the locker room. Johnny had to laugh as well, and then he exhaled a heavy breath.

"So why is it that in three years you never mentioned her?" Roy asked. "And don't give me any bull about how it just never came up in conversation."

The question hung in the air, and Johnny stuffed a wad of bandages into a corner of the supply box. "Well...you know!" his reply was shrill and he rubbed his neck and shot an innocent smile at his partner. As he looked up he realized Mike was looking at him, Roy was glaring, Chet had stopped sweeping, and Marko was leaning out the locker room door. Even Hank wasn't slamming or muttering at the moment. "Just...I guess...I dunno! I just..." he shrugged frustrated. "I Just Never Mentioned her!" he yelled as he twitched, and changed the subject. "You know, she made five trips back and forth to that store just yesterday? Now my place is a bigger wreck than it was before we started to clean! What the heck she wants all that stuff for is beyond me."

Mike and Roy exchanged glances with each other over the subject change. They both knew they would have to nag to get the answer out of Johnny about why he'd never mentioned his sister. In the meantime they would let him have his tangent. Johnny went on talking about all the shelves and fake flowers his sister had dragged home. Roy exhaled and laughed at his partner. "I know what all that stuff is for," he pointed at his partner. "I know what she's doing."

"What?" Johnny asked, and he seriously seemed clueless.

"You'll see." Roy was smirking.

"See what?"

"I'm not telling."

Johnny's eyes went large and round. "Not telling me what?"

"I'm not telling you anything," Roy smiled broadly, enjoying himself and his partner's bafflement. It was great revenge.

"Well, fine!" Johnny slammed the supply box shut and latched it. "Fine! I don't even know what you're talking about anyway! So its fine!" He got to his feet and dumped the box back into the squad. "Fine!" he cleared his throat and glared at Roy. "I really don't know what you're talking about anyway! So it's fine!"

Roy gave him a shrug, a smirk and then turned to walk away from him. Johnny put up a hand in a 'wait-a-minute' gesture and opened his mouth to speak, but Hank hollered loudly from the kitchen in such a way that no one would dare to ignore it, "Dinner is done! Get in here and eat!"

The four men in the bay all blinked in the direction of the Rec room, unsure if they wanted to go in there, no matter how delicious the food smelled.

"We're coming!" Johnny called before Hank got more impatient than he was already. He motioned at Roy to go in first.

"Why me?" Roy whispered.

"You don't need to pick out an ambassador! All of you get in here and eat!" Hank roared.

The three men between the vehicles nearly fell over one another to hurry along. Marko ran across the bay with wet hands, and Chet put away his broom but peaked hesitantly around the corner of the open door, unsure of how welcome he was going to be at the table.

"Chet, come and eat before it gets cold." Hank invited in a calm but not entirely forgiving tone.

He stepped in and took his place at the table with his work family for dinner. As he cut into his steak, he thought, Cap can't be too mad at me or he'd have made me a baloney sandwich instead of steak. But who is doing this to me?

Johnny lifted his head up and saw Chet glaring at him, and also spotted Mike glaring sidewise at Chet. He knew exactly what Mike's problem was—he was jealous because Nakee was obviously charmed by Chet's antics. That explained why Mike glared at Chet for most of the shift. He wondered to himself, 'Why is Chet glaring at me though?' Johnny did what Roy was doing. He put his head down over his food and did not look at anyone.

More To Come...


	11. Chapter 11

JOKESTER

~)51(~

At six A.M. the alarm clock clammered anxiously, but Nakee was already awake. She was standing on a chair hanging curtains in Johnny's bedroom and stepped down and click the alarm off. There was now no hope of going back to sleep, and she cursed herself for nerves that were so jangled she managed only three and a half short hours of sleep. But she had spent the time well. Rather than laying in bed fretting about the upcoming day, she had made a lot of progress at decorating her new home. Other than some tacky posters of nearly naked women who looked ready to engage in mating rituals with sport's cars, her brother had not decorated the entire place.

Along with curtains for Johnny's windows, she'd gotten him a new bedspread with a huge and very beautiful wolf pattern done in greens and browns. For a store full of used stuff-mostly tacky junk, the bed spread had been a magnificent find. There were now three classic portrait images of lovely women on the wall that didn't look like they were ready to engage in mating rituals with sports cars—although two of them were still unclothed women, but the prints were of classic nudes rather than tacky posters. She had moved the posters into the closet, along with his clothes that had been scattered all over the floor in various piles according to how clean or dirty they were. It had taken a lot of time to wash all of them, and she had no doubt he was going to have a few choice words for her about throwing away half his socks. She knew once he saw that his room now resembled a bedroom rather than a graveyard for old underwear and socks, he would get over her meddling.

She headed into the small kitchen which now had a small table against a wall and two chairs on either side. It was a bit marked up, but the green and white plaid table cloth hid the imperfect table-top, and the two mismatched chairs were actually charming in their own way. One chair was armless and dainty with a light color in the wooden finish. The other chair was heavy and rugged and the finish was dark and its heavy arm rests were scuffed by some abuse by the previous owner. She knew Johnny would like it despite the wear and tear. The paper towels no longer lived on top of the fridge, because she had gotten a holder for them. There was a proper spice wrack and a toaster cover, and the oatmeal, sugar, and the coffee were now contained in mismatched canisters rather than in the original packaging. And the bath towels would no longer be used for pot holders. There was a pair of oven mits hanging on hooks on the wall along with an apron. All she needed now was a vase of flowers for the counter that divided the space between the living room and the small nook of a kitchen.

The living room was now actually livable. She'd put a slip cover on the worn out old sofa, and added end tables and lamps into the corners. The once bare walls now had pictures and interesting ornaments atop charming shelves. Johnny was going to be very surprised, she knew. Although none of the new items actually matched, the chaos of different colors worked out in its own sort of homey patch-work. It was not the sort of thing one might see in a magazine, but it was comfortable, it worked, and she was mostly sure that Johnny would find most of it at least acceptable. The whole place was so shockingly different to look at now that even she didn't recognize it. "All I need now are a couple chairs and some plants to put out there," she mused as she studied the bare space of the balcony. Johnny had a yucky old bean bag chair with a network of duct tape all over the sides in one corner of the balcony. As soon as she found a half way decent chair to put out there, the bean bag was going in the garbage.

The phone rang and startled her badly and drew a quick shriek of surprise out of her as she hopped backwards. Being alone always made her nervous. Waiting for the first day of her chosen career to begin was making her more nervous. She snatched the phone from the hook. "Hello?" her heart was thumping in her chest, but Johnny's smiling voice came through and made her smile back. She answered him in their language. "I am all right," she laughed at herself. "I was right by the phone and the ringer is on very loud and it scared me." she listened a moment and laughed again. "I will try to not be nervous. Maybe I'll see you today at the..." she heard the tones going off in the background and a hastey 'Igottago!'

"Be careful." The dial tone came through so quickly she was sure he had not heard her. She put the phone back in the cradle and exhaled with a smile. It had been good to hear a familiar voice.

.

Less than an hour later, Nakee came out of the apartment building's back door, wearing a pink sundress, and her hair in a neat braided twist. She carried a stack of folded boxes under one arm, and had a doufle bag was slung over the other shoulder. The boxes all were a bit rumpled, but still usable. Bright red lettering on the read, 'The Used Barn' and in smaller letters below this, 'Return boxes for credit.' She crossed the parking lot to the Rover and keyed open the rear gate. A middle aged neighbor also on her way to work waved to her as she drove past, "Good luck to you Nakee! Have a good first day, sweetheart."

Nakee smiled and waved back, but deflated once the woman was gone. It was very lonesome and a chill hung in the morning air. She got in the driver's seat, and turned on the radio to listen to a morning show while she settled herself. On the radio, the DJ announced the possibility of a morning rain. She could just imagine what it might be like to sit on the balcony and watch it rain. But it wasn't going to be so easy to find time to sit and watch the rain anymore. Nurses worked a lot of long hours; especially new nurses. She backed the rover out of its space, and it hummed happily as she steered out of the lot. But she fretted about having forgotten something that she might need. The key to the apartment was there with the car key, and she was sure she had locked up the door just fine. All her clothes she had to have for work were in the doufle bag, and she had checked three times to be sure she had not left anything turned on. "I really hate first days," she turned onto the road and headed for the first day of her life's chosen work.

.

"Morning, Dixie!" Nakee smiled a greeting. She marched down the hall into the main hall of the ER wearing her white uniform and nurse's cap.

The senior nurse looked up from her paper work and mirrored the smile she saw on the young woman's face. "Good morning, nurse Gage." She laughed as she said that. "Its going to take me a few days to get used to saying Nurse Gage, you know?" Nakee giggled, and Dixie reached into a drawer and pulled out a name tag and an ID card. "For you."

"OH!" The young woman reached for these items but Dixie grinned and shook her head so she did not grasp them.

"I believe there should be some kind of a ceremony for a nurse on her very first day. Since there isn't one, I like to put these things on for everyone on their very first day on the job." Dixie expertly put Nakee's name tag into the upper right of her uniform, and then clipped her ID card just below it. "Welcome to the field, Nurse Gage."

"Oh thank you, Dixie!" Nakee smiled from ear to ear and looked at her name tag. Though it was upside down she could still see it clearly, 'Nurse N. Gage.' "Hey, that does feel like a ceremony almost."

"You're not the first one to say that!" Dixie laughed and regarded her newest charge. "Now, first thing's first. You will spend the next two weeks by my side as much as possible. You're even going to take your breaks and meals with me." Dixie pulled a small notebook out of a drawer and handed it to the dark haired nurse. "That will fit perfectly in your uniform pocket, but for now I want to see it in your hands as much as possible, either writing it in or reading your notes. And make sure you always have one along with at least two pens. You can start by writing down what you need to know." The senior nurse gave a nod. "By the end of this week I expect you to have memorized to locations of all the drugs, and supplies in these cabinets behind me. They're arranged the same way inside the treatment rooms. I also expect you to get to know the staff by name and what their jobs are and what they can do. So if you're not good at remembering names, don't be afraid to write them down along with descriptions. So if a doctor tells you that he needs a big strong fellah, you'll know who to look for." Nakee nodded, and to her credit, was already writing things down. Dixie gave her a moment to finish her note taking and then guided her to the base station's radios. "Now, since your big brother is a paramedic, I expect you know what this is?"

"The radios. You use them to talk with paramedics in the field."

"Good, and you know we have four squads that report to us, and 51 is one of them. The boys should start to call in sometime between seven-thirty and eight to do the daily check in of their equipment. It'll be a good time for you to practice talking to them. For now you and me are going to have a little radio conversation so you can get used to it."

Nakee smiled. "Okay!"

.

~)51(~

.

Within the walls of station 51, the damp haired Captain stepped out of the locker room dressed. There was the sound of a towel snapping and Chet let out a yelp and hollered, "MIKE!" The door swung shut and closed off the sound of two men laughing. Hank smelled burned coffee, and he spotted a still shower damp Desoto checking on the squad's equipment and supplies. "Whose coffee is that I smell?"

Roy looked up from his squatting position on the floor and answered, "That's Chet's coffee that no one drank yet."

Hank muttered some grumpy dissapointment and went to his office to do paper work. Johnny was the man who made the best coffee in the house, but Chet had to take his turn occassionaly. He would rather drink something other than burned toxic-waste though. Johnny passed by Hank on the way out of the office, bio-phone and defribrilator in hands. He'd probably charged the batteries. Hank noticed the paramedic's wet hair was messy, and prepared to bark at him, but Johnny stopped him with a question, "Cap, want me to dump the uh...other coffee?"

"I would appreciate that, John," Hank answered, but couldn't let Gage get away with messy hair. "Go comb your hair-after you make the coffee!"

"Okay," Johnny said cooperatively.

Hank dropped himself at his desk chair and Gage hurried away from his grumpy Captain. He put the heavy items down for Roy to handle and headed off to the kitchen. Roy objected to his partner leaving him with so much work, "Hey! Where're you going?"

"To make coffee."

"Well, okay!" Roy was no longer objectionable. If his partner could do something to put Hank in a better mood then he was willing to let him try. He opened the bio-phone and defibrilator for their morning tests and picked up the bio-phone's receiver and called, "Rampart this is squad 51, reporting in and testing."

The voice that answered was not Dixie's and he knew the girl had to be a new nurse. "I read you loud and clear 51."

If only he didn't have to maintain strict business on the radio, he thought. He really would have liked to ask the girl if she was Nakee Gage. He hooked in the defibrilator on line two and called it into the newcomer.

.

Johnny poured burnt coffee out of the pot down the sink and made a face at it. Just the smell was horrid. Chet made the coffee much too strong and put the burner up too hot and then left the heat on. The bitter burned and overcooked flavor would linger in the pot unless he scrubbed it thoroughly. He took vinegar out of the cupboard to help with the task. On the television he heard the newsman report that they were expecting rain today. He really didn't mind rain. That meant brush fires were less likely.

"Thank goodness!" Mike said as he entered the kitchen, hair wet from his shower.

"Huh?" Johnny questioned absently.

"You're making fresh coffee. I was worried we'd have to drink Chet's toxic-waste with breakfast." Mike went to a cupboard to collect a bowl since it was his turn to cook.

"Toxic waste!" Johnny snickered at Mike laughed as well. Mood brightened, tension eased, they both felt more at ease. Johnny wondered, "What're you making?"

"French toast." Mike showed him two pans of soaked eggy bread in the refrigerator.

"Mike you are the Chef!" Johnny grinned. "Italian style huh?"

"Stoker, style!" Mike nodded at his own comment. "Uh...hey is uh...your sister still coming for dinner tonight?" He didn't quite manage to keep the shrill sound out of his voice.

"Yeah...uh..." Johnny rinsed the vinegar out of the coffee pot. "As far as I know. Yeah she's coming."

"Oh. Good." Mike deliberatly walked off facing away from Johnny, probably trying to hide the fact that he was now blushing.

Johnny just pretended to not notice while he dried the coffee pot with an already damp towel. Mike squatted in front of a lower cabinet to get the griddle and... "CLACK! SPLAT!"

Johnny startled at the noise and felt something cold and wet hit his arm. He turned his head to find a glob of whipped cream just above his elbow. Mike made a sputtering noise and Johnny looked down at him and saw he'd fallen over backwards. Most of a chocolate cream pie was stuck on his face. Within the cupboard was a catapult now empty of its confection. Unfortunatly Johnny couldn't help laughing at this. Goop was falling off his poor shift-mate's head as he helped him to sit up. "Mike...?" he nearly choked with his laughter. "You all right?" Johnny got a finger full of chocolate to have a taste, but was almost laughing to hard to taste it, but he managed. "Hey, that's really good!"

The vanilla crust wriggled and cracked apart into a mouth shape as he spoke, "I ...am really going to kick his ass!" Mike wiped most of the pie off his face with two hands and flung the offending matter off his fingers, not caring where it went. Johnny had to jump out of the way to not end up with the goo on his new boots. He almost fell over as he was laughing so hard.

"Oh would you stop!" Mike grumbled as he wiped his eyes, and Johnny laughed even harder as a wad of goop dropped of the poor Engineer's nose. "HA! HA! HA! Very fu..."

The tones chose that moment to go off. "Station 51, structure fire with injuries..."

"NOT NOW!" Mike cursed as he clambered blindly to his feet with Johnny's help.

Johnny pushed the damp towel into Mike's hands and jogged off to the squad, laughing. He hurried to help Roy get the equipment back in the compartments. A very chocolatey and very angry Mike came along trying desperatly to clean the goop off himself with that one very messy towel. As he climbed into the engine, the other guys all looked at him. Marko rolled his eyes. Hank simply twitched as if he was about to lose his mind. They all glared at Chet. Mike's chocolatey expression was particularly angry. Chet insisted, "Hey, it wasn't me, man!"

The squad wailed out of the bay, and the engine followed with her chocolaty and rather humiliated driver glowering out the windsheild with an angry scowl. When a car looked like it might possibly not get out of his way, he slammed his fist on the air-horn, and scared some poor lady out of her wits.

MORE TO COME...


	12. Chapter 12

**JOKESTER**

~)51(~

The squad and the engine pulled into the station and six very anxious men piled out of the vehicles. Fifteen minutes previously, Mike hadn't thought about anything beyond a need to do his job, but now all he wanted was to knock Chet out cold and then have a second morning shower. With the Captain present—and deliberately standing between him and his intended prey, he would have to settle for the shower, but later he would take care of the lineman. "I'm going to take a shower." He glared so angrily at Chet that no one dared to say a word. Poor Mike was still quite chocolaty, but now the goop was crusted into his hair. He stalked away into the locker room taking his chocolaty helmet with him.

The other five men stared after him. While Chet seemed to want to say something, Marko kept hushing him. Hank looked to Johnny. "Now what the hell happened before we left?"

Johnny shoved his hands in his pockets as he told the story, grinning, "Mike opened a cupboard to get a pan, and a chocolate pie hit him square in the face." His mouth spread into a helpless smile and he couldn't help his giggling, no matter that the Captain was glaring at him. But the moment that glare settled on Chet and then darkened in severity, Johnny had to stop.

Hank headed into the kitchen and spotted the mess on the floor. Fist sized lumps of whipped cream and chocolate goop were spattered on the white tile floor, leading a trail to the door from the spent catapult in the open cupboard. Hank stepped over a chocolate pile. "I am glad Boot was locked in my office. Chocolate is really bad for dogs you know?" he looked at Chet as he said this.

The lineman shook his head and in his anger, nearly shouted, "I wouldn't waste a chocolate cream pie like that, Cap! Not even on Gage."

"Now, who else could have set that up then?" Hank inquired calmly.

"I don't know, but it wasn't me!" Chet was turning color.

Marko shot a dark look at his fellow. "Amigo, you keep saying that. But these pranks have you written all over them."

"Marko that is not fair!" Chet glared at him hatefully. "You're my buddy man! You're supposed to back me up!"

"Chet in this case I wouldn't have a leg to stand on if I tried to defend you."

"Look, you guys!" Chet argued. "Anyone could have set this up! Even Mike! Maybe the whole joke is a frame up! Maybe someone's out for revenge!" At this he looked dead at Johnny.

"Well, don't look at me, Chet!" Johnny's brows went up in sharp angles.

Roy stepped forward. He knew Chet had reasons to suspect Johnny could be the guilty one, but also knew his partner hadn't had any time to set up any of the pranks. "Chet, you have to admit, it looks bad. I put dishes away in that cupboard this morning while you were making the coffee. Then I left and was working on the squad while you were in here by yourself. No one else came in until Johnny went in to make new coffee and he didn't have time to set that up before Mike walked in."

Chet glared at the floor. He wanted to yell at Roy for always defending Johnny in cases like this, but knew it would be in bad taste to try a retort like that. "All the time I was in here, I was strictly taking care of the coffee."

"We could probably count that coffee of yours as a joke too." Hank said this and didn't look at anyone, and that left the others free to chuckle.

"Hey!" Chet whined. "I think my coffee is good!"

"For used oil its great." Roy teased.

"Awww..."

"Get this cleaned up Chet," Hank spoke with a slight tinge of irritation in his voice. "When you're done with that, you can get started on..."

"Why do I gotta clean it up?" Chet stamped his foot angrily. "Cap! I'm not doing these things!"

"But you are the most likely suspect their Kelly!" Hank spoke sharply. "When you're done, you can clean the latrine, and since you need something to do so badly, you can find a floor brush and scrub grout. If you run out of grout, you can clean the mortar between the bricks." He nodded to him, and gave him a brows up look that said, 'get to it.' Chet's poisonous expression didn't faze him at all. "John, I'd really like a cup of coffee." Hank turned to go, but stopped and scowled back at him. "Gage, did your comb malfunction this morning? You look like something that got picked out of a shower drain!" Roy and Marko did not quite dare to giggle over this remark. Hank glared at the two surprised men. "What are you two standing there looking at me for? Go...clean something!" he made a wild motion with both arms that sent both of them scampering back out to the bay. Hank looked back at Johnny. "Gage, make sure you fix your hair!" He began to walk off, but looked back at the paramedic and added, "After you make the coffee!"

"All right, Cap." Johnny exhaled as his very grumpy Captain departed the room, abusing the door on the way out. He ran a hand through his hair wondering what was wrong with it, and went back to the sink to make the coffee he had not yet made, and hoped he'd get to drink half a cup before the tones went off again. Chet scooped chocolate off the floor with a spatula and threw each blob into the sink with an angry 'SPLAT!'

While Johnny was getting the easy job of making coffee, Chet couldn't help but to glare at his back with shear aggravation. Someone was setting him up, and he thought only Johnny would be able to do such a good job of framing him. The Captain favored Johnny because he made good coffee. Marko just looked after him because he felt sorry for him for being the Phantom's favorite pigeon. Roy was always guarding him like a sentry. And now Mike who'd really never been very chummy toward Johnny would defend him to the death because he was in love with Nakee! He soaked a mop and used it to get some smears of chocolate off the cabinet door.

.

"Coffee's done!" Johnny's voice filled the bay. He retreated away from the door to get cups, and reached up for the cupboard door.

"Better open that carefully, Johnny," Chet warned darkly as he wrung out his mop into its bucket. "Might be something in there."

Johnny stepped back from it warily. "Did you put something in there, Chet?"

Chet shot him an innocent gaze. "Me? No! But someone's playing pranks. You never know what someone might have put in which cupboard."

"Oh, yer just trying to scare me, cause you're mad that you got busted!"

"I didn't get busted, I got blamed for something that someone else did!" Chet violently rinsed out his mop in the sink. "You know what?"

"What?" Johnny asked tiredly.

Chet half hissed out, "I think its you."

"Me?" Johnny put a hand to his chest, hoping to make Chet calm down with a bit if humor. "I wouldn't have wasted a chocolate pie like that! Not even on you!"

Chet stalked forward though and wagged a finger in the paramedic's face. "I'm not talking about just the pie! I'm talking about the water catapults an-and the whoopee cushion!"

Johnny laughed at this as he swatted Chet's hand away. "You think I'd put your whoopee cushion on my own chair?"

"What better way to set me up and make sure I take the fall?" Chet's tone was full of anger.

"Now Chet!" Johnny yelled back and wagged a hand at him. "If I was gonna pull something on you, it wouldn't be a setup!"

"Is that why you were the one laughing when Mike got a pie in the face!" Chet's cheeks and nose were turning a vibrant shade of red.

"Oh? So, now I'm guilty because I thought that was funny? Who doesn't laugh when someone gets hit in the face with a pie?" Johnny glared and then shouted. "Maybe you're just trying to turn the blame around on me!"

"Blame?" Chet argued. "If I was the one who'd done these things, I wouldn't deny that I had! I did NOT deny the one that I set up! Which was the ONLY one that I set up and that was the shaving cream! And somehow you turned it around..."

"I DID not turn that around on you! I didn't even know..."

"If you wanna get even with the Phantom, just go ahead and put pudding in my boots...or...or something, but why frame me up like this?"

"Is That What You Think?"

"Yes, It is what I think, Gage!"

"Chet," Johnny exhaled and made a settle down motion at him with one hand and spoke evenly, "Chet, I am not framing you. I wouldn't do that!" He wanted to tell the other fireman that pudding in his boots might be pretty funny but...

"Well, I think you are framing me!" Chet was too angry to see his friend's expressions and was shaking a finger at him as his face got more and more red. "I know its you Gage! No one else on this shift would do all that stuff! You just better watch out, cause if there is a next one it'll be you in the worst way I can think of!"

"Chet!" Johnny wanted to stop him from walking out of the Rec room with his mop and bucket. He deflated though, and tried not to be angry with Chet for the outburst. For now it was better to let him cool off. And he knew it was better to let him cool down before he went within fifty feet of Chester B. Kelly.

.

Just outside the Rec room, Hank was leaning against the wall. At the moment he wasn't sure what to think, but looked to Roy who'd also heard the entire exchange. Chet walked out of the Rec room so fast that he didn't see Hank or Roy having a very quiet conversation with each other. Chet stormed across the bay into the locker room and before the door shut, he could be heard yelling, "GET OUTTA MY WAY MARKO!"

A second later, Hank and Roy were stunned by the noise of a sudden and very loud argument from within the locker room. Before either of them could react, the door was thrown open and Marko backed out with a struggling Mike in a two handed headlock. "YOU'RE LUCKY FOR NOW! YOU SON OF A FILTHY RAT! I'M GONNA RIP YER HEAD OFF AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS!" Mike's legs scrambled as he fought to get purchase on the floor. The locker room door shut. "MARKO GET OFF! LET GO OF ME! LET ME GO!" He got his feet underneath him and pushed angrily, trying to throw his captor over backwards.

Roy and Hank were just in time to grab a hold of the raging Engineer's arms just before the frazzled Marko would have lost his hold. "MIKE!" Roy gasped at the strength of the raging man. "CALM DOWN MIKE!"

Hank shouted as he struggled to keep a grip on Mike's other arm, while avoiding getting kicked, "STOKER HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?"

Mike let out a raging growl as the three men held him firm, and the noise echoed through the bay like a Lion's Roar. "GET OFF ME! LET GO OF ME! LET GO!" He struggled maniacally, throwing his weight in every possible direction in an attempt to throw off the three men. "I'M GONNA KICK HIS ASS!"

Hank very calmly ordered, "That's enough, Mike."

The reasonable tone got through to the Engineer immediately and he seemed to wilt from violent anger to shocked acquiescence. He no longer struggled, and his mouth opened, and then closed. After a moment of watching as his fuming anger faded, Hank and Roy let him go. Mike had the decency to look ashamed of himself as he stood there, round-eyed, like a little boy waiting to be scolded. Marko and Roy stood, shocked, and panting, with hair-tussled, and uniforms in disarray. Hank's brows were squashed down in serious thought. He never in his wildest dreams would have thought Mike was capable of acting that way. "What in the world has gotten into you, Mike?"

Mike's brows went down and he looked confused, and seemed incapable of finding anything to say.

Hank decided it was time to have a serious talk with him. Silent, he met the Engineer's eyes and pointed at his office.

Stoker looked very alarmed, and gulped. He started to turn, but as he put weight on his leg, he gasped and caught a hold of the engine to balance himself.

"What's wrong with your leg, Mike?" Hank's question was in the tone of an order.

Mike looked as if he was fighting to not make any sounds. "Nothing!" He made a Herculean effort to straighten his leg and managed to limp to the office. "I'm fine!" His choppy steps crossed the bay.

"Shut the door, Mike." Hank stated flatly, and Mike closed the office door behind himself.

Roy and Marko both chewed at their lips. Hank looked to Marko. "Did Kelly say something to him?"

Marko started to sweat nervously. "Cap, I..."

"Spill it Lopez!" Hank snapped. "All of it!"

Marko jumped a tiny bit, sighed and hunted for words. "They...didn't say anything to each other. Mike just...well...he looked at Chet."

"He looked at him and then?"

Marko cleared his throat. "And...Chet sort of gave Mike a little nudge on his shin for being in the way. Then Mike nudged him back, so I grabbed the one closest to me and...you know the rest!"

Roy knew as well as his captain that Marko was trying to gloss over the truth to protect his friends, who had probably done much more than nudge each other. Hank met his eyes and then motioned at the locker room with his chin. Roy knew it was an unvoiced request for him to go take a look at Chet. He pushed the locker room door open and spotted Chet at the sink nursing a bleeding and swelling lip. Normally he might have charged in, but knew Kelly was in a bad temper. "You all right, Chet?"

"I'm fine!" he spat blood into the sink though.

"You're bleeding there..."

"I cut myself shaving!" He barked, and took a wad of paper towel for a compress and walked into the back area of the locker room to resume cleaning.

Roy went forward to go after Chet, but Hank stopped him, "Let him be." Since neither of the men were going to admit they had been injured by each other, he had no reason to take any formal actions. Still, that did not free him from the task of a verbal rebuttal. The poor man heaved a sigh. "Give him a while to cool off and then see if you can get a look at his shaving injury. And when I get done with Mike, have your partner get a look at him. I know he'll die of oxygen deprivation from talking too much before he'll give up."

The remark caught Roy off guard and made him smile as he realized he had also been listening to Johnny talk about his sister last night. "Right Cap." He and Marko watched him cross the bay into his office, and the door was quietly closed.

"Roy?"

He turned toward the voice of his partner, who was standing in the doorway of the Rec Room. How long he'd been there, and how much he'd seen, Roy could not know. "Yeah, Johnny?"

Johnny cleared his throat. He looked extremely uncomfortable and unhappy, but Roy supposed they all probably looked quite miserable. But Johnny was quiet for too long, and Roy began to think his partner wasn't going to say anything. The three men waited, making no attempts to eavesdrop on the conversation within the office. From the muffled droning, they all knew Hank was giving Mike a lecture. In some cases that was worse than an outright scolding. From within the locker room they could hear Chet filling a bucket, and after a moment there was a lot of loud and violent scrubbing just near the door.

"This sure is one hell of a shift." Johnny seemed to get bored, and retreated into the kitchen. Roy was about to follow him, but the office door opened and Mike walked with a slight limp through the bay. Hank's voice carried out, suggesting he was on the phone. Marko and Roy were relieved to see that Mike did not appear to be upset at all. Marko and Roy cut him off before he could limp into the kitchen. "Well?" Marko questioned.

Mike shrugged. "Cap said after Chet cools off, me and him will be doing all of our chores together for the next two weeks and that includes hose duty. I also have to apologize to everyone before dinner." He looked across the bay at the locker room door, expression flat and dull at first and then confused. "I just can't believe that I..."

Hank came out of his office, and filed into the group of men standing by the Rec Room door. It took him a moment to realize that the three men were looking expectantly at him. He shot back an expression that asked, 'What are you all looking at me for?' and then said, "I'm gonna get some coffee before it gets stale."

Roy lead the way in, with Marko next, and then Mike. Hank dropped a hand on Mike's shoulder with a slap hard enough to make the Engineer cringe. "You gonna cook something for us there Mike? We're all pretty hungry!"

"Sure, if someone else opens the cupboard doors for me."

Hank's sudden sharp grip got to the point better than words. Mike half choked out, "I guess...I could open my own doors very carefully."

The Rec room door shut. After a moment, Chet Kelly pushed out of the locker room, mop in hand and he looked sadly across the bay. He could hear the muffled voices and then laughter through the door and guessed they were enjoying Gage's good coffee, and there were still some donuts leftover to be enjoyed. He'd been waiting for the Captain to intrude upon the solitude to bark at him for having given Mike a whack in the leg with his mop. And he didn't blame the Engineer at all for giving him a fat lip now, but being left to sulk alone was the last thing he had expected, and probably a worse punishment than a harsh scolding out of his Captain. With the air of a man who knew he wasn't wanted, he went back to his cleaning.

More To Come...


	13. Chapter 13

**JOKESTER**

~)51(~

Johnny was just too quiet for Roy's liking as they journeyed back to the station in the squad. His poor pathetic passenger was soggy and smelled like bacon and bean soup, a lot of which was smushed into his hair. Every so often a bean dropped off him and plopped on the squad's interior and he stared furiously out his window ignoring the beans. Roy broke into the reverie, "What's bugging you?"

He didn't look at Johnny but saw a small motion of one hand in his peripheral vision. It was all the response he get other than, "Nuthin."

When Johnny said he didn't want to talk about something, it usually meant he really did. But when he said 'nothing' was wrong, it meant something was really wrong and he was dwelling on it and it wasn't going to be easy to get it out of him. Roy knew he'd have to guess, and Johnny would only remain patient enough for him to make three guesses, and if he got it on the first try, he'd only get mad. "Let me guess."

"Nuthin's wrong!" Johnny groveled and tried to go back to staring out the window. He dropped his head back on his fist.

Roy was having none of that though and decided to pester him. "You're disappointed that your sister was busy and you didn't get to introduce us?"

"Well...yeah, I guess." Johnny barely lifted his head off his fist to mutter. "She's coming to the station for dinner in a few hours. You'll get to meet her—I hope."

Strike one, Roy thought. That wasn't the issue bothering him. He knew because Johnny wasn't arguing with him. "Our last victim dumping her bean soup over your head got you..."

"Oh, hush!" Johnny groused and turned his head further away from Roy.

Strike two, Roy mused. That reaction meant that he was a little embarrassed because he had gotten soup dumped on his head, but that was not really bothering him. And what was really bad about Johnny's reaction was that the silly question would normally have made him at least crack a smile. But this funny guess had only annoyed him. Something was really eating at him then.

Roy glanced at his soiled partner, then back to the road, and drove in silence, giving him time to mull over his thoughts for a few blocks more. "I know what it is. Chet blowing up at you about..."

"NO! That's not bothering me!" Johnny half shouted and then scowled angrily out his window.

Homerun, Roy thought. But knew his partner well enough to know his response of denial meant this was really serious and it was gnawing at him. It was not a good time to try to nag him for more information or to pick at him. At least he knew now that he was really upset that Chet was blaming him for the pranks. "He says that it isn't him but..."

"Its not me!" Johnny said angrily.

"I wasn't going to say that."

Johnny's jaw flexed and he seemed to chew on something small with his front teeth. "He thinks I set him up."

"You know what?"

"Hmmm?"

"Chet talks really loud. Me and Cap heard the whole argument. We were talking about that while you were fixing up Mike's leg."

Johnny's head turned and he stared hard at Roy for a long moment. The invitation for a conversation was given, rather than a demand for information. Johnny decided to accept the conversation with a simple response. "And?"

"We were both wondering where Chet could have gotten a chocolate cream pie."

"Huh?" Johnny was confused for a moment and he realized. "OH! Right!" He laughed finally. "That's easy. While the Engine was called out of service so they could clean up, Chet could have just gone across the street to the bakery and bought one while the other guys were showering."

"That's what we figured too." Roy nodded. "No one else could have! Chet was the only one that went missing this morning. It must've been him!"

"Yeah. I guess."

"In short, Johnny, Chet was pulling off a very good act on you. I figure that argument he had with you was a joke in and of itself." He wanted to add more; 'it worked pretty well too. He's got you dwelling on it.' Roy did not say this last though because he knew it would make his partner so mad that he would sputter for a while and then sulk and clam up.

Johnny was shaking his head though. "No. You didn't see the look on his face. He really thinks I'm setting him up and leaving him to take the fall too."

"You're not worried about him doing something to you next?"

"Worst thing he'd do is put ketchup in my shoes or something like that. That's not..." he trailed off to look out the window and think for a beat, and then turned back and half shouted out, "I didn't like the look in his eyes!" He exhaled and carried on more calmly. "You know, he was really mad at me. Really serious. If it wasn't him doing that stuff..." he seemed to have a light bulb turn on over his head. "It's not like him to Not admit to it, you know?"

"Oh come on!" Roy half shouted and took a hand off the steering wheel to make an angry motion. "You missed the point that I just made. Chet wants you to think he's not guilty so you'll be distracted wondering who really might be. If you're distracted that makes you an easy target for whatever he's got planned next."

Johnny thought about that a moment and shook his head. He went back to staring out his window, and Roy figured the conversation was over. But Johnny spoke up after a long silence, "No! I really don't think that's what's going on."

Roy blinked, and took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at him, only to see the back of his head. He looked at the road. "Then what is it if you don't mind explaining it to me?"

"I don't know."

Roy's exasperation would have been seen a mile off through the squad's windshield. "No matter what I say to you, you're going to sit there and brood over what he said to you to throw you off then?"

"Roy!" Johnny exhaled his frustration. "If you're not with me then let it go already! You're so stuck on what you think that you're not hearing me at all!"

"All right, then, what is it that you think I'm thinking?"

"You think that me and Chet having that argument was because he wants to distract me so I won't notice it when he pulls a prank on me next, right?"

"Yes!"

"And you're so determined to think along those lines that you aren't seeing what I do."

"So what are you seeing?"

"Something's wrong!" Johnny said with a confused scowl. He made a motion as if swatting off a bug and sulked out the window.

Roy waited for him to elaborate, but after another block or so he looked over and saw the back of his sulking partner's head. "You know what?"

"What?" Johnny turned to look at him.

"That was an incredibly descriptive answer that gave me intense peace of mind because now I understand it all and I have a perfectly clear picture of what you're thinking." His tone was sarcastic, and his humorous one-handed motion made his partner chuckle. "You wanna explain that a little better?"

Johnny didn't look away from his window. "I just don't know. I got one of those nagging feelings telling me something's not right. Like...hair on the back of my neck sticking up and I don't know why. Like that feeling you get when you're being watched."

Roy drove in silence for the remainder of the drive back to the station. He knew Johnny wanted to think, and it was best to just leave him to it. Later on after Chet got him with a water bomb, Johnny would see he'd just been thinking too hard.

.

Johnny tried to not shed any of the sludge plastered all over him onto the clean bay floor as he dashed across it. He dropped his clothing in a wad on the floor in the locker room and donned a towel. He did his best to ignore the noise that Chet's scrub brush was making somewhere in the rear area of the locker sections. He did not like the idea of being alone in the locker room with Chet mad at him. Maybe the shampoo was tricked with dye? Or his toothpaste was switched for something that would stain his teeth purple? He took his supplies into the shower and shut the little latch on the door. It was hardly there at all for privacy since the door was smoky glass. There was no relaxation here at all, but rather a need to wash at hyper speed and hope the alarm didn't sound while he was in mid-shampoo, or that the shampoo didn't have something in it that would turn his hair neon orange. He worried that there might be dye in the showerhead and was hesitant to get under the spray for a moment. But he could not linger in doubt and ducked his head under the water. He kept his eyes open as he rubbed his head to get the dried crud out. It was all very stuck, and he knew it was going to take a bit of time.

The shower door rattled.

He lifted his head up to look through the smoky and somewhat translucent door. There was nothing to see though. Maybe it was just the breeze coming in? He chided himself for being paranoid. It could be a good thing to just let Chet get him and then the guy might feel better. He poured in the shampoo and scrubbed.

The shower door rattled again, and again he looked through one eye, and saw nothing at all. Maybe Chet was shaking the door just to irritate him and scare him? "Oh, I'm making myself crazy!" He turned his back on the door and focused on scrubbing a particularly stubborn bean-soup-matted wad of hair just over his left ear.

.

Chet didn't want to look at Johnny at all and not just because he was in the shower. He felt really guilty now for having yelled like he did, not to mention stupid. Since he'd yelled at his shift-mate and accused him of the set up, and then nearly gotten into a bullfight with Mike, he'd barely said a word to anyone else at all and had kept his head down in penance and hands busy in work. Tile grout didn't come clean easily or quickly. The brush moved and the bucket of water took on a dull gray color. It needed to be changed, but if he did that now, Johnny's shower would be interrupted by a sudden change in water pressure and temperature. He would be nice and wait, he thought. Maybe while Johnny was getting dressed, he'd find some way to apologize without actually saying the words, "I'm sorry."

The motion of a shadow caught his attention and he looked around the line of lockers and saw a booted foot. The shower was still running. He couldn't see the rest of the person from his vantage. If it was Mike, he didn't want to even see his shoes, let alone him! The Engineer did nothing but scowl and glare at him since the shift had started and he was really sick of that. If it was Hank, he would rather hide because he kept thinking up more chores for him to do. And Marko kept trying to make him feel guilty. Only Roy would have been the one he might have liked to speak with, but he didn't want to poke his nose out any further and end up getting the wrong person's attention. So, he turned back, renewed his brush in the bucket and resumed cleaning the grout between the floor tiles.

.

In the Rec room, Roy was digging the leftover lunch out. He and Johnny had simply made a big pile of grill cheese sandwiches for lunch, but since they'd eaten a very rich breakfast so late, not much of their lunch had been consumed. They were great warmed up in the oven for a late afternoon snack though. "Roy, you gonna tell us how Johnny got covered in that filth?" Hank wondered.

"The girl we went to help was having an asthma attack. She didn't want a shot, but he gave it to her anyway, and she got mad and poured her soup on his head." Roy laughed at the memory of the look of shock on his poor partner's face. He bit into one cold grilled cheese sandwich and put three more in the oven on a plate—two for Johnny.

"I want one." Mike requested

"Me too!" Marko added.

Roy rolled his eyes and reached for another plate.

"Me three," Hank grinned.

"How about I just warm them all up?"

"Yeah!"

"Good idea!"

Roy put the second plate back, and opened the lower cupboard for a baking sheet, and a spider with a coin sized body popped out, its gangly legs touched his arm. "EEESH!" He jumped away with a shudder and lifted one foot as the creature tumbled to the floor. The three other men in the room all laughed, including Hank. Roy had to laugh too. He knew that his reaction must have looked pretty funny. He saw the spider wasn't moving at all, and reached down to hit it with the back of a finger and realized it was fake. It had tiny google eyes and a silly painted smile. "Who did this?" He lifted the thing by one rubber leg to let everyone see it was a toy.

"Who else?" Hank grunted, and threw the newspaper open in front of himself like a wall. He ignored all further comments.

Mike and Marko exchanged 'uh-oh' looks while Roy carefully put the toy spider on top of the telephone near the door.

.

Chet saw the shadow of the other person in the room moving, and then heard Johnny's voice shouting out in a tone of annoyance, "Chet, what the hell are you doing?"

Chet started to give a clipped answer, "I'm not doing any..."

Johnny gasped loudly and then screamed. It was not a short irritated scream, or a shriek of exasperation, but a long drawn out enormous wail of sheer terror that made Chet leap up off the floor with his heart thumping in his ears. "JOHNNY?" He went straight for the shower at a dead run, and his feet slipped on the wet floor but he caught himself and spotted the tail end of a uniformed person rushing out through the door into the bay. Though it was a warm afternoon the man had on his jacket. Chet really would have loved to see who that was, but Johnny's terror was more important. From the other side of the frosty glass door, Johnny was muttering, and struggling with the sometimes-sticky door latch.

"Johnny? You all right?" Chet inquired, not wanting to invade. He assumed that the person who had just run out of the room had tossed a rubber spider into the shower with Johnny, or maybe some other equally harmless thing. By now Johnny was probably realizing that his reaction of terror was far from necessary, and most likely his fear was turning into humiliation and anger.

"GEMME OUT!" Came a frantic shout and the door was rattled by a pair of desperate hands.

The sudden fear response was so unexpected that Chet jumped backwards in surprise.

"CHET GEMME OUT!" Johnny inhaled a panicked shriek, followed by another hair-raising scream, "HELP ME!" Johnny threw his full weight on the door, wrenching the metal frame and left a bloody streak on the inside of the glass.

"WHOA! HOLY CRAP!" Chet stood up on his tiptoes to look into the shower, over the top of the door. He saw the paramedic, half on the floor and half leaning on the door, heaving air, and shaking with panic. He was wet and soapy and bleeding from where, Chet couldn't see, but red smears were all over the shower stall and diluted blood was circling the drain. On the other side of the spray of water was a snake, flicking its tongue as it reared up into a corner, frantic for an escape route. "Oh my God!" Chet whispered and tried to yank open the door but it was not going to budge. "JOHN! Calm down man! Calm down! You gotta unlock the door!"

Johnny's blood smeared hand slid down the door, away from the latch he'd tried again to open. His fingers left long smears of blood on the smoked glass. He sobbed his answer to Chet but didn't take his eyes off the snake, "Its not locked!"

The snake slithered toward him, and Johnny yelped and scrambled out of its path, leaving bloody smears on the tiled wall...

More To Come...


	14. Chapter 14

**JOKESTER**

~)51(~

Mike and Marko were snickering softly from the sofa while the television played an old black and white sit-com. Hank grumpily rattled his newspaper as he turned the page. Roy opened the oven to check on the warming sandwiches, and was almost certain that he heard a very odd noise. But as he straightened to listen he didn't hear anything else and wasn't sure if he'd heard the noise of passing traffic, or a man scream. "What was that?"

Mike and Marko stopped their muffled giggling, while Hank crumpled the paper down to look at his senior medic. "What was what?"

Roy was about to tell them all to never mind, but Chet's voice cried out from the bay...

.

"I NEED HELP YOU GUYS!" Chet was holding open the locker room door, shouting as loud as he could, not daring to go too far from the terrified and trapped paramedic. "HURRY JOHN'S IN BIG..."

His last word was cut off by Johnny's horrific screaming, and the shower door banged and shook as if a rabid mountain lion were trying to get through it. The paramedic's vocalized fear was making Chet's hair stand on end. He rushed back to Johnny to attempt to make him calm down. He worried his friend would break the glass door and kill himself trying to get through it. He was trying to climb up and over the door, but he didn't have enough of a grip and fell with a wet sound to the tiled floor. "HELP ME! GEMME OUT! GEMME OUT! PLEASE GET ME OUTTA HERE!" he gasped, and sobbed, as he beat on the door with both fists.

"John, calm down! Calm down!" His own heart was racing with fright. Johnny's terror was rubbing off on him and he couldn't think. Chet worried that the medic had gone completely insane.

The guys all charged into the room, and Chet didn't need to say anything. Johnny's raging fear drew Roy to peer over the shower door at the sight of his bloodied and very hysterical partner. He tried to pull open the door, but found it wouldn't open. "JOHNNY UNLOCK THE DOOR!"

"I'll call it in!" Mike ran back out.

Johnny's only response was to throw himself at the door again, and the hinge popped, and a tile flew off the wall. The only reason he did not try again was because the snake slithered toward him. Johnny scrambled away, screaming. "GEMME OUT! PLEASE LEMME OUT! CHET HELP ME!"

"John? Johnny?" Roy tried reason. "Unlock the..."

"You're not gonna get through to him." Hank grabbed at the top of the door and pulled hard. Roy added his own strength, and they shook it and rattled the frame.

The serpent darted away from Johnny, and coiled itself protectively, flicking its tongue as it slithered about hunting for an escape. It was obviously no less frightened than its fellow prisoner. Johnny didn't look away from the snake, and appeared to be ready to make another assault upon the door as soon as he had a clear path.

"GAGE STOP!" Hank ordered. "Just take it easy! Get away from the door all right, Johnny! Get away from the door!"

Johnny didn't take his eyes off the snake. But he seemed to hear his captain's voice at least. He backed into a corner as far from the snake as he could get and pulled himself into a crouch. His head stayed up, wide-open eyes stared hard at the slithering creature. Johnny was ready to bolt away should the snake come toward him.

"Why won't this open?" Hank shouted out, irritated as he gave the door a violent yank that only made the door groan. "That little latch is nothing!"

Johnny stared at the snake as if mesmerized. Each time he inhaled his body jerked, and he made a high-pitched sound in his throat every so often. The men all peered over the door to see this, and knew they'd get nothing out of him now.

Marko took a closer look at the seam of the door, and touched a shiny globule that looked like an oversized water droplet. "Ah...it's glue!" Marko pulled his finger away with a bit less skin. "Someone glued it shut!"

There was a resounding pause. Johnny's gaspy panicked breathing, and the hiss of running water were like a deafening cacophony to Chet's ears, but worse were the stares filled with accusation and anger. Roy stared at Chet, shock reflected in his blue eyes. He took an angry step toward him...

Hank slapped Roy's arm to get his attention. "Let's get him outta there! NOW! Lopez, get some pry bars! Kelly O2 canister! You know the drill!" Once the guys jogged out, Hank leaned out the bay to yell, "Mike we need an ambulance!"

.

Within Rampart Emergency, Nurse Gage spotted the flash of the light signaling that a squad was calling in. After having answered so many calls since she'd started work, she felt like an old pro now. With no more thought than answering a phone, she pressed the button on the radio and clicked on the recorder. "Rampart Emergency, go ahead,"

The voice that responded was Captain Stanley, "Rampart, we have a code I here at the station, paramedic is trapped in a shower stall with a snake and he's having a severe phobic fear reaction."

Nakee's blood ran cold. There was only a fifty-fifty chance that the paramedic Captain Stanley was referring to was Johnny. She forced herself to stay calm and use her brain and not let her fears take over and distract her from what she had to do. She made notes on a paper even as she looked around the halls hoping to spot Dixie or one of the doctors. Or any other nurse qualified to take over. If it was Johnny she did not want to have to take the call. "51 do you know if he was bitten?"

"We don't know if he was bitten, but he is bleeding. He is a victim of a practical joke gone very bad, so we doubt it's a venomous snake, but we will transport the snake with him. Rampart Standby."

"Standing by 51." Nakee's voice was a bit high, but under control. He teeth were clenching together with anger. Who would throw a live snake at a man in a shower? She dug her notebook out of her pocket, flipped to a page and then picked up a phone. Once she got a response, she requested, "Page any doctor to the Base station." she hung up, and then chewed her lip and waited.

.

Hank worried now about Nakee. He knew that was Johnny's sister on the radio, and had no doubt that she was suspecting Johnny. What a thing to have to deal with on her first day on the job, he thought.

"Johnny?" Roy called into the shower, and explained what was going to happen. But his partner was not listening to him at all. He was staring as if mesmerized at the snake that had coiled itself into the opposite corner. Johnny was non-responsive. He looked back at the other guys, worry in his eyes. "You ready Mike?"

"Ready." Mike had a firm hold of a fire extinguisher, open and ready to blast the snake.

"Go!" Roy held onto the door and Chet and Marko shoved pry bars into the very narrow space between the upper and lower hinges. While Roy yanked and pulled on the door, the other two wrenched the pry bars. The door groaned and cracked angrily as it was forced to open. Tiles popped and bolts popped and complained as they were bent. The door finally gave with a final violent "CRUNCH!" Marko and Chet dropped their pry bars noisily and now used their hands to help Roy force the door further open. The glued side of the door was taking tile off the wall rather than give way. "That's some strong glue." Marko strained. He and the others backed up to give Mike some space with his O2 canister.

Mike was not especially happy about going into the shower to disable the snake, but it was Johnny that made him wary of going in. "Wish that snake would come out here so I could..."

As if on cue, the snake slithered out, and attempted to flee. Mike was ready, and showered it with a cold blast of O2 from the extinguisher. The creature writhed and flopped but then went still. Chet threw a blanket over it and pulled it out of the way, and Marko sweep the sharp bits of broken tile and glass away with his foot.

"Johnny you hear me?" Roy stepped into the shower, "Johnny?" he shut off the water and looked directly at his friend. He was streaked with blood, naked, cornered, shaking, gasping and his eyes were darting all over. It was a clear-cut case of hysterical panic. Roy approached him very slowly, one small step at a time, speaking gently, motioning at the rest of the guys to keep out and quiet. He stopped when he was within arm's reach of his partner. "Johnny you hear me?" Roy was well aware that in such a state of high strung fear, no matter how well they knew each other, right now Johnny was as dangerous as a wild animal, and his phobia induced condition and adrenaline would give him unnatural strength. Not only was he dangerous to Roy, but to the other guys, and to himself as well. If he made the wrong move, there was no telling what his partner could do. Until the fear reaction had run its course, and the lights within his brain resumed function, he might know nothing more than the primeval instinct to either fight or run. And since he was now cornered by a larger person, his instinct would tell him to fight. Roy squatted down very slowly in front of him and called, "Johnny...?" he made no move to touch him. "Johnny you hear me?"

His partner drew in a shuddering gasp and made eye contact with him, and there was a spark of recognition within the glassy-eyed confusion.

Roy took that to mean his brain was beginning to turn back on. "Just gonna check your pulse, all right?" He reached out very slowly to touch his partner's right wrist.

Just as he'd expected, Johnny startled and yelped at the touch and tried to back up. Roy had expected this response. "Easy!" he coaxed. "Take it easy!" The guys outside the shower shuffled nervously, ready to grab a hold of Johnny should he make a mad dash to escape. Roy remained outwardly calm and watched with relief as Johnny looked all around the shower. "Where? Where'd it go? Where's the snake?" His voice held a hiccupping quality.

"It's gone." That was all he needed to know. "It's gone, Johnny. It's all right now. It's gone."

"Gone?" Johnny was still looking around. His voice came out high, like a child's, "You sure?"

Roy clutched his wrist gently and counted his racing pulse. "The snake is gone. Calm down, now. You gotta slow down your breathing."

"It bit me!" Johnny's eyes sparked fresh terror and he looked to Roy, expression begging for help. "It bit me!" He lifted his left arm up. "It bit me!"

.

"Chet," Hank asked gently without looking at the other. "What kind of a snake is it?"

"I don't know." Chet's tone was dull and lifeless and something about his tone made Hank turn a curious eye on the lineman.

Roy's soothing tones came from out of the shower, over shadowed by Johnny's voice repeating that he'd been bitten.

Mike very carefully unwrapped the snake from the blanket, poked it a couple times. Once satisfied that it was probably dead, he picked it up and forced its mouth open. "Cap, it doesn't have any fangs. Just lots of little teeth. I think it's a constrictor. Roy I don't think it's a poison snake!"

"How sure are you?" Hank questioned as he reached for the bio-phone.

"Not really sure at all, Cap." Mike admitted as he rewrapped the snake.

Hank reported the information to Rampart anyway.

.

"It bit me!" Johnny gasped.

"Sh! It's okay. You're all right!"

"It bit me!"

"Johnny stop!"

"IT BIT ME!"

"Stop, its all right!" He grabbed his partner's shoulders and gave him a slight shake. "Stop!"

Johnny stared at him. Roy turned Johnny's arm over and spotted a very bloody wound on his inner arm just below his elbow. The snake had not left a simple pair of puncture marks on his arm, but a nasty oval bloodied wound. Roy guessed that maybe the snake had been clamped on his arm and Johnny had torn it off of himself, and some of his skin had been torn away along with the snake. But he was more interested in finding discoloration or extreme swelling. "Johnny do your fingers hurt or do you feel any numbness or..."

"It bit me!" Johnny panted. He was caught in a loop of thoughts and unable to think beyond having been bitten. "It bit me!"

"It's all right. Stop!" Roy very gently touched a spot on Johnny's arm close to the bloody wound. There was no reaction to pain, no contortion or stiffness in his fingers, and the small amount of swelling he noted around the wound was normal for a non-poisonous wound of that size. "It's okay," he soothed his partner. "It looks all right. Just take it easy. You're all right."

Johnny seemed to take in these words slowly and he blinked and let his head go back to rest in the corner. He shut his eyes and began to consciously calm himself down as he exhaled slowly.

"You hurt anywhere else?"

Johnny was shaking badly. "I wanna get outta here!"

Roy saw that his partner's terror was ebbing, but something else was taking over that he liked to think of as Post Trauma Jitters. "Easy. Calm down, all right?" He jotted down some notes onto a paper that he handed back to Marko. "Lemme have the BP cuff and my stethoscope."

.

"Rampart, Squad 51," Hank's voice came through the radio to Nakee. She responded, "Go ahead 51."

"Rampart victims vitals are as follows. Pulse is up over 150, respirations are about 30 and erratic. He's talking, but he is incoherent. He has a snake bite on his upper left forearm." Nakee wrote all of this down quickly with a shaking hand. "The bite is showing no signs of discoloration, severe pain, or..."

Nakee heard the Captain's voice drowned out by a sudden scream of fright that sent chills up and down her spine. Now she knew, it was Johnny. The channel closed leaving silence.

"51, what's happening?" Nakee asked firmly. "51 report!"

No response. The pencil in Nakee's hand snapped in two, and the noise made her jump in fright.

.

"It's just a stethoscope Johnny! STOP IT" Roy had wedged his terrified partner against the wall with his full weight to stop him leaping up and running. "Its not gonna hurt you!"

Johnny's struggles stopped but his chest heaved and his speech came in a frenzied and barely comprehensible tumble. "I wanna get outta here! Lemme out!"

"All right! I'll get you outta here." Roy backed his weight off his friend. "Just take it easy." He looked back to Marko. "Hand me a blanket."

Marko unwrapped an emergency blanket for him, and very slowly handed it over.

.

Nurse Gage spotted the head nurse coming around the corner with very fast steps and almost cried out her relief. "Dixie!" She called, and whatever was in her voice and her expression made the head nurse pick up her pace a bit more. Nakee wrote down the last she'd heard from 51 and as soon as the blonde nurse was within hearing distance, she rambled. "Dixie, I'm sorry! Please take over! I'm sorry!" She left the notepad and the now broken pencil in Dixie's care and turned on her heal to escape.

She wanted to run away, but knew Dixie did not allow people to run. It was all she could do to force herself not to run at full speed down the hall, but she did walk as fast as her legs would take her, into the coffee room. As soon as she was behind the door, she sank into the nearest seat and bent over and whimpered and shook like a lamb. But now, it seemed so ironic; she had the luxury now to release her emotions and cry, but could not. Nothing would come. There was no flood of emotion, and she could not even make herself laugh at the irony.

More To Come...


	15. Chapter 15

**JOKESTER**

~)51(~

"Why? Why'd he do that? Why'd he throw a snake at me?" Johnny's voice broke and he gulped hard.

"Shhhh, take it easy, Johnny." Roy guessed he was talking about Chet and didn't turn around to shoot a hateful look at him like he wanted to. He tucked his soggy partner into an emergency blanket and then tried to pull him to his feet, but Johnny was about as cooperative as a sack of sand. "Come on. Come on! It's all right now. You're all right! Let's get you out of here!" He hauled him to his feet, but Johnny could barely walk and kept repeating, "He threw a snake at me! He threw a snake at me! Why'd he do that? What did I do to him? I don't know what I did wrong!"

As Roy lead his partner out of the shower stall, Marko got on the other side to support some of his weight. They quickly threw down a blankets and made him lay down. Roy reached for bandages, while Mike and Marko worked to bundle Johnny into blankets like a sausage both to keep him warm, and to restrain him. "Why'd he throw a snake at me? What did I do to him?"

Everyone was looking at each other. No one was sure what to think. Hank was frozen with the biophone's receiver halfway to his ear and glanced mutely at Chet. Marko met Roy's eyes and then Mike cast a stare down at the floor. Johnny's plea to be told what he'd done wrong was making their stomachs turn. Roy wrapped his shaking partner's wounded arm with gauze and stayed silent and looked at no one.

"51, what is your status?" The biophone crackled Dixie's voice. After a few seconds, she repeated the request. "51, come in."

"Why'd he throw a snake at me? What did I do to him?" Johnny struggled weakly, but Mike and Marko held him firmly to the floor.

"51, respond NOW!" Doctor Brackett demanded.

Roy took the biophone from Hank's lax grip and answered, "Rampart this is 51," Roy reported. "Victim is now in a state of growing hysteria. Request a sedative."

"51 go ahead with Diazepam..."

Hank heard what the doctor was ordering, but noted Roy had a preloaded syringe in his hand almost immediately, and before Bracket finished his sentence. Johnny tried to struggle when he saw the needle coming, and half pleaded. "No. Don't wanna sedative."

"Shhhh..." Roy tugged the blanket off Johnny's uninjured right arm and swabbed a fleshy space with alcohol.

"Don't want it!" Johnny growled and wriggled anxiously.

"Take it easy." Roy affirmed. His tone was that of a determined man. One way or another, he was going to sedate his partner.

"NO!" Johnny flailed one leg in a weak attempt to kick, but the blanket and his own laziness prevented any real threat to anyone. The small motion was enough to spur Mike and Marko into leaning on him with their full weight. The sudden pressure and their determined expressions only served to scare him into further panic. "GET OFF ME!" He struggled pointlessly against the two, only to earn two more sets of hands pinning him to the floor. "NO! LEMME GO!"

Marko and Mike strained to keep Johnny down, and Hank was nearly thrown backwards as Johnny's adrenaline enhanced strength enabled him to buck like a bull. "ROY HURRY!"

"GET OFF ME!" Johnny shrieked.

"Easy!" Roy grabbed a hold of his partner's arm and jabbed him with the syringe.

Johnny's voice cracked as he shouted at his partner, "Man! You're a real jerk!" He let his head drop back to the floor.

"You're welcome." Roy tossed away the empty syringe, and reached for an IV cannula.

.

Mike held Johnny's IV up while Hank helped the two ambulance attendants to lift the now barely-conscious medic onto a gurney. He was strapped in securely, and Marko closed boxes and readied to follow in the squad. Roy took the biophone along as the ambulance attendants wheeled his partner out the door. Mike followed, still toting the IV. "Chet stay put." Hank stopped him from following out with the others with a motion as he exited the locker room.

Chet froze as the door sighed shut. He knew what was coming. And wondered if he should bother to defend himself at all. If he took the blame and excepted penance, he might be able to save his job, but this was going to be a permanent mark on his record. Although Johnny had become the victim, 'he' was the one taking the fall. Someone really had it in for him, and he now had no doubt that Johnny wasn't the one pulling the pranks. But who would? He could not in a million years imagine that anyone else in the station would do such things. He pushed the door open to look out. The ambulance had backed up to the open bay door in the driveway and Johnny was loaded in. Roy said something to Marko who nodded and handed up the drug box. The ambulance doors were shut, and Hank slapped them. The vehicle pulled onto the street and the siren wailed out and faded as it sped away.

What now? Chet questioned himself. Who was doing this? He backed into the locker room and looked at the mess. The shower door was ruined, and there was blood all over inside the stall. He wasn't sure if he should clean it up or not. It was practically a crime scene. He went to the back area where he'd been cleaning the grout and retrieved his scrub brush and bucket to dump it out into the toilet. He flushed it, and then exited with his bucket in hand, Marko entered from the bay and gave him a look that was both uncertain and hurt and angry. "Chet, why?"

"I swear to God Marko, it was not me!" Chet spoke desperately, praying that his buddy would believe him. "You know I would never..." Chet trailed off as the door opened an inch.

"Lemme in there, pal." Hank requested of Marko, and his voice was full of some forlorn quality that Chet didn't like at all.

Marko stepped aside to let Hank in. Mike was just behind him. The three men were all clearly shaken and frazzled and anxious. And Chet saw that his Captain actually looked old as he looked around at the mess of broken shower door, and blood and papers and used emergency blankets. "Chet..."

"I did not do this, Cap." Chet put his bucket down beneath one of the sinks.

Hank rubbed a spot on the back of his head as he exhaled. "I don't know what to think. Honestly, I don't want to even consider that you could have done this. I know I've been on duty four days straight. I'm tired, and I'm trying very hard to think clearly about this. There's been one prank after another and up until now they were harmless, and maybe this one was supposed to have been..." he trailed off and ran a hand through his hair.

"It wasn't me, Cap! I saw someone in here!" Chet pointed to the back area of the locker room. "I was in the back cleaning grout like you told me! I didn't look to see who it was, but I did see another person in uniform in this room. It was not just me and Johnny in here. When he started to scream I got up to help him and saw someone run out the door."

"Who, Chet?" Hank wondered, brows up.

"I only saw the back of him as I came around the corner." Chet shouted. "I didn't see who it was!"

Hank exhaled heavily and looked down at the floor then back at Chet. "You absolutely sure about that?"

"Yes."

Hank and the others were silent. Marko and Mike both were fiddling with their uniform tags, and Hank shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He cleared his throat.

"You don't believe me." Chet stated flatly and looked at the others from beneath angry brows. The fact that they did not believe him was like a slap in the face.

"I wish I could, Chet." Hank exhaled and rubbed one very tired eye. "Marko, Mike, Roy and I were in the Rec Room since the squad got back from that last run. The bay doors were shut, and the front door is locked. No one could have gotten in here without someone knowing about it."

"Cap..." Chet trailed off, then rubbed his forehead and exhaled. He felt cold sweat trickle down the hollow of his spine. "I swear that I would never do such a thing! Especially not to Johnny! Not after that rattler bit him. I certainly would not have used a real snake, and the last thing I'd have done was glue the door shut!"

"I heard what you said to him a few hours ago!" Hank spoke huskily. He saw the blank expression on Chet's face, and reminded him, "You said to him if there was gonna be another one you were gonna get him in the worst way you could think of."

Chet's mouth dropped open but he said nothing.

Hank looked down at the floor, and his brows went up and down a few times before he finally looked at Chet again, and said softly, "Go home, Chet."

"Am I fired?" he asked, flat toned.

"Suspended for the rest of the shift." Hank made a motion at Mike to leave and then slapped Marko's shoulder. Mike went out the door first, followed by Hank. Chet leaned against a sink with a sour expression. The door swung shut, and the footsteps of the Captain and the Engineer faded.

Chet looked to Marko who was reaching for Johnny's locker door. As Chet spoke, Marko turned his head to look at him. "Marko, please tell me that at least you believe me."

"I think everyone wants to, Chet but..."

Chet's jaw dropped as Johnny's locker door came open and a snake fell off the upper shelf and landed on Marko's extended arm. "AYE!" Marko yelped and jumped away shaking the thing off his arm. It landed with a lifeless hollow 'plop' and lay pitifully, mouth open, painted eyes staring upward. From having seen the toy many times, Marko knew right off where it had come from. He put his hands on his hips and frowned at the rubber snake and muttered, counting to ten in Spanish. But the long pause did nothing to appease his anger and under the circumstances the joke was not in the least bit humorous. He retrieved the rubber snake from the floor, then threw it. The toy hit Chet square against his belly and he caught it instinctively. Marko shouted at him angrily, "Take your pet and go home, Chet!"

.

Dixie poured coffee into two cups and brought them to the round table in the break room. She put one in front of her new and very tense nurse, and held the other in two hands as she sat down across from Nakee. "You all right?"

Nakee sipped the coffee but didn't complain about the bitterness. "Am I fired?"

Dixie blinked and scowled. "What makes you think you should be fired?"

"I..." she shrugged one shoulder. "I just...walked off my duty pretty much. I was supposed to be doing..."

"Now stop." Dixie's tone was firm. "Under the circumstances if it was anyone's fault it was mine that you were left without supervision. You're a new nurse and I'm not supposed to leave your side for any reason during your first ten days on duty here."

"But that's only to help me learn the hospital and the people. I should know what my job is after four years of school."

"Nakee!" Dixie warned as she set down her cup. "Just look at the situation. You're a new nurse. It's your very first day on the job and you've only been here in the city a couple of days. You barely know anyone, and the one person you're close to is the one who turned out to be your patient. Now under circumstances like that, I would have expected you to fall apart at the seams. But you stood your ground until a suitable replacement arrived."

Nakee held her coffee cup and shifted in her seat. "But I..."

"If you keep on beating yourself up for walking away only 'after' handing it over to me, I will get angry at you, Nakee!" Dixie nodded her head for emphasis. She drank some of her coffee, grimaced, and put the cup down. "This certainly wasn't made by you."

This made Nakee laugh, and Dixie knew the poor kid was still very upset because she laughed too loudly and then caught herself trying to not cry, but the tears weren't going to stay back this time. She bowed her head to hide her face. "I'm sorry. I..."

"No, don't apologize. I never should have left you alone."

"Not your fault that happened! Someone had to stay at the desk and..." She trailed off sobbing.

Dixie reached for a box of tissues and handed them over. "Now if you're telling me it's not my fault, you certainly can't blame yourself." She rubbed the younger woman's arm. "I have a patient who should be arriving any minute. Will you be all right?"

"I...I should get back to the desk..." Nakee tried to get up, but Dixie pressed her down. "You stay put now. As of this moment, you are off duty until tomorrow morning."

"But I..."

"Your shift was over five minutes ago."

Nakee lifted her tear stained face up to peer at the clock and saw it was just after three. "That means you're off now too."

"A friend needs me to look after a relative, and I intend to see to him personally." She trotted out the door before Nakee could say another word.

Dixie was just in time to greet Roy as he and an orderly unloaded his sleeping partner from the ambulance. "Four." Dixie directed and walked ahead of them into the treatment room.

.

Johnny was aware of all the activity going on around him, but unable to respond to it for a long time. He went back and forth in and out of reality and time lost meaning to him, but he knew he had to wake up and ferociously fought his way back. He opened his eyes to find Doctor Bracket leaning over him, and Dixie and Roy milling around him in his peripheral vision. Helplessly, he faded again into sleep and felt he drifted off into gray fog. "Gotta wake up," he said aloud.

He felt as if hours had passed, but he was still in the same room with the same people. He had to tell them about the snake. The snake! Where was it? He could hear it slithering toward him.

Johnny sat up as suddenly as a catapult springing off and cried out, "Where is it?" Something metal clattered to the floor, and he looked over the sides of the gurney for the snake. "Where'd it go?"

"Johnny take it easy!" Roy's voice was gentle as if he was talking to a child. He reached forward and grabbed Johnny's shoulders. "Lay back. You're all right."

Johnny relaxed, and cleared his throat. "I was dreaming." his voice was raspy and his throat sore and dry. "I just dreaming," he assured himself with great relief. The sensation of grogginess was overwhelming and made him feel almost dizzy and he allowed his partner to push him back down. For a moment, he shut his eyes, but then remembered he was mad at Roy and woke up to snap, "You know, I really did not want that sedative!"

"You really think I could have left you the way you were?" Roy asked seriously, eyes wide. He deliberately blocked Johnny's view of Dixie. The nurse had a handful of restraining straps.

Johnny barely heard his partner's answer. "Gotta tell ya...gotta tell...Captain." His eyelids were dropping, but he fought to keep himself awake. Something he had to tell him, but what? What was it that couldn't wait until he'd slept for a while? The snake—something about the snake. "Snake...gotta tell you..."

"It's all right. Don't worry about it. It's gone." Roy's voice and the light over his head were fading.

Johnny resisted the urge to sleep. "Gotta tell Cap! Chet. The snake..." He swallowed against his very dry throat. He knew Dixie was doing something to his feet, but didn't actually care. "Roy, I gotta tell ya...the snake. It..."

"It's gone, Johnny," he assured his partner. "Just go to sleep. You're all right."

"No! NO!" Johnny shook his head, frustrated that he could not make his partner understand. "I gotta tell him." He heard his words slurring into nonsense, and struggled to make himself coherent.

"Whatever it is can wait a little while, Johnny." Dixie grinned down at him while she rubbed his right arm. Her voice seemed to echo oddly around the room and he felt like he was falling. But Dixie was buckling him to the table, so he wouldn't fall off. She would keep him safe.

.

After what seemed like an eon of fading in and coming back to consciousness repeatedly, Johnny felt his head itching. He woke and tried to scratch, but his right arm was strapped. He tried his left. "Mmmph!" He wriggled angrily, and found that he was very well restrained, ankles, chest, and his left arm was completely immobilized. Thoughtlessly, he tried to yank his arms free.

"Johnny, you're all right. Don't struggle!" Came Bracket's voice. The dark haired doctor was bent over Johnny's snakebite wound, inspecting every millimeter with intent focus with the help of a magnifying light. Roy and Dixie distracted Johnny with small talk, and Bracket swabbed away some blood and spotted several snake's teeth that were too far down to grab with a pair of tweezers. He need to cut them out, and needed either an X-ray for proof, or permission to remove them. He straightened after a time and called down to his friend. "Johnny...?"

"Head itches." he whined, but the sedative was stronger than the burn of his itchy head or the aggravation of having been tied down. Snake, he thought, he had to tell the Captain. "Snake. Captain. Gotta tell him..."

Dixie's face appeared over him, a soothing grin on her face, "Shhh...it's all right, Johnny. The bad old snake is all gone!" She petted his head as if he was a child. And though he should have grumped, he couldn't, because he liked being petted, and if he was able to, he might have purred like a cat. "Head itches."

Bracket was glaring at Johnny's arm. "Dix, how long before I can get X-rays for him?"

"It'll be a while. He's been bumped down three times now for more serious patients." Dixie stepped away from the gurney and let Roy take over soothing his partner's confusion.

Bracket scowled down at his incoherent patient, then looked to Roy. "You sure he got that entire dose of Diazepam?"

"Yeah," His nod was emphasized with raised brows. "He's fighting it."

Bracket stood thinking a moment, and he looked madder every second.

Dixie put a gentle hand on the doctor's arm. "Kel, would it interest you to know that Nakee is in the coffee lounge right now?"

Doctor Bracket blinked at his nurse, and seemed ready to bite her head off, but she grinned up at him as she reminded, "His sister?"

Bracket's dark expression brightened and wagged a finger at her. "Good thinking, Dix!"

She didn't get time to respond. He turned on his heal and hurried out of the room, leaving the door swinging. Roy looked down at his partner, who was helplessly fading into sleep again. "Snake..." he whispered as his arm tugged at the restraint. "Don't let 'em fire Chet."

More To Come...


	16. Chapter 16

Warning; Bad language in all Capital letters ahead. Hence the T rating.

* * *

**JOKESTER**

**~)51(~**

Johnny dreamed that he was in the Rec room cooking dinner alone and a giant snake was sitting at the table sneering at him the same way that Carl Phillips would sneer, and the thing demanded to be allowed to eat his arm. If he didn't give the snake his arm to eat, then it was going to kill all of his crew, starting with his Captain. The snake picked up his arm as if it was a steak and coated it liberally with something cold and then began to gnaw on it. At first it didn't bother him too much. The snake just slobbered on him, and it was just gross. All at once Johnny noticed the snake's friends had gathered around to watch. One long tooth sank deep into his arm. "Don't! Don't it hurts!" He pleaded and struggled, but the snake's friends were holding him down.

"OW!" Johnny cried out. He woke more to the sound of his voice than the pain and struggled angrily, chest heaving, not sure even what he was trying to do, or what he thought he could accomplish. He felt strong hands, holding his limbs down. It was a pointless battle on his part, but he could not resist the urge to try to fight. "OW! STOP!"

"All right, Johnny. It's all right. I'm almost done! Hold still, all right?" Johnny blinked more fully awake, and saw Bracket somewhere on the other side of a very well muscled arm. Someone was holding onto his head, and he blinked up to see who it was, but the bright overhead light blotted his vision. At least five others were around him, and one at his right side was familiar. "Marko?" he panted. "Marko help me! The snake is biting me!"

"Amigo, its all right. That's not a snake." Marko grinned worriedly down at him.

A burning pain shot into his arm up his shoulder into his neck. "OW! GET IT OFF ME! STOP! MAKE IT STOP!" Johnny cried out and clenched his teeth and furiously tried to wrench himself loose. The examination table rattled and the men surrounding him leaned on him more heavily, straining to keep him still.

"Whoa! Johnny! Take it easy!" Roy ordered from above, and he realized who it was that was holding his head. For a brief instant, he thought his own partner had betrayed him to the snake and was helping to hold him still for the serpent.

"GET THE FUCK OFF ME!" His voice broke, and tears threatened. The onset of a crying fit in front of a bunch of other guys only served to make his temper shoot to a violent rage. Against the odds, he managed to lift one leg and his back arched. "FUCK! GET OFF!"

"JOHNNY GAGE!" Dixie hollered. "Just you stop that nonsense! You know very well no one is going to hurt you!"

Her voice cut straight through the drugged fog of hazy confusion, fear, and anger. He gulped air and found her face grinning at him from the left. The concern in her blue eyes made him realize that there was not in fact a snake eating his arm, the men he saw holding him down were not friends of the snake, and the snake was not in fact large enough to eat him anyway. Now he felt silly for having thought so. "Dix, are we at Rampart?" he asked in a small voice.

"Yes, this is Rampart. And you're all right, so just settle down."

He exhaled his relief but then remembered his arm still hurt, and there were still lots of hands holding him firmly down. "Ow!" It felt sort of like someone scratching nails down a bone inside of his arm, rattling raw nerves with screechy sound waves. He could not hear it, but he could certainly feel it and he really did not like it at all. "GAH! What the heck are you doing to me?" Although it was clear there was no snake, he still did not understand the people were trying to help him. And, he could not actually move his head to see what was going on. Arms were in the line of his sight, and Roy was not going to let him move his head at all. "Roy, block the light man."

"Sure." Roy moved so that his head blocked the light and now Johnny was able to see his partner's face. It was all good, he thought and let his eyelids drop.

"Dix, you deserve a raise for that." Bracket voiced.

"You're welcome."

Bracket straightened up, and dropped an empty syringe with a very long needle onto a tray and looked up at the orderlies and the two firemen. "Let him go."

The men very slowly let go and backed off a few steps. Johnny felt his arm going numb. He panted for a space of a few seconds and gulped air. The sudden rush of activity and pain had pulled him out of his stupor. Finally he understood that Doctor Bracket had done something to his arm. "Doc!" Johnny felt water dripping out of the corners of his eyes. He was frustrated by the fact that he couldn't lift a hand up to wipe it away. "Doc, what'd you do to me?"

"I gave you a local anesthetic," he said and went on explaining. "It should start to take effect in a few more seconds." Bracket leaned over him to pry open his eyes and check his pupils. "Seems that snake left some teeth in your arm and we have to get them out. Most of them are on the surface where I can get them, but there are at least two that are in pretty deep. I'll have to cut those out."

Johnny had only barely heard the doctor's explanation and he'd understood even less. He watched as about eight men went out the door one at a time. Marko and Roy remained and were somewhere in a corner whispering to each other and he stared at them. "My head itches." He looked to Dixie wanting her to fix his itchy head and the tickles of water at the corners of his eyes. "I wanna go home."

"We'll get you comfortable upstairs as soon as we're done here. Just a few more minutes."

He felt something cool dabbing all the itchy sweat off his face and opened his eyes to see Dixie fixing him up. "Thanks Dixie."

"Welcome," she nodded.

Now he felt almost completely awake, and looked to Bracket. "Doc?"

"Hmmm?" he grunted as he let his stethoscope off his ears.

"I really want to go home."

Bracket met his eyes and then exhaled. "That is going to be up to your sister, Johnny. If she agrees to keep an eye on you through the night, then you can go."

Johnny smiled broadly. "I'll bribe her then. There's a pink chair she wants."

Bracket had to laugh at his response. "I'll be back in a few minutes. I'll send her in." He motioned at Dixie to follow him out the door.

Johnny didn't think to tell him thanks until he was gone. Roy and Marko were the only ones left in the room. It was far too quiet, and he could hear the buzz of a light, and the muttering of voices outside the door. There was some ethereal quality to very air in the room that made him feel half-hypnotized, or still partially asleep. He knew it was the drug making him feel strange. "What time is it?"

"Four thirty." Marko answered.

"Is it still Tuesday?" Johnny saw both his friends nod. "Feel like I been sleeping for at least a week. Last I knew it was almost three and then..." he trailed off, not wanting to think about the snake, or the humiliation he'd been through. He wasn't sure what part of it was more embarrassing, being caught in the shower, or having a temper tantrum like a stupid baby. But why? "Why the hell did he throw a snake at me?"

"Don't worry, John," Marko grinned down at him. "Chet won't do that ever again."

Johnny stopped in the middle of inhaling and opened his mouth. There was something he needed to tell the guys, and he was determined to tell them, and reached for Marko. The restraint stopped him. "You gotta tell the Cap...gotta tell him, not to fire Chet."

"Johnny, don't worry about Chet," Marko said encouragingly. "Cap might make him lick the latrine clean, but he won't fire him."

This made Johnny trail off into giggles that went on long after he forgot what was funny...

Worried, Marko looked to Roy while Johnny faded back into a forced and unnatural sleep. "He's really out of his head. You sure he's not going crazy?"

Roy shook his head. "That was a very large, and very strong sedative I gave him. He should be sleeping like a log, but he's fighting the effects. Or maybe the adrenaline is keeping him awake. Something's bothering him."

"I see why, man." Marko nodded. "I think if it was me I'd be really mad at Chet."

"Funny thing is, I don't think he 'is' mad at Chet!" Roy looked down at his sleeping partner. "All the way here in the ambulance he kept saying weird things about the snake following us, but in between that he'd say to me, not to let anyone fire Chet."

Johnny jerked on the gurney and his head came up. He seemed wide-awake and completely coherent. "No, don't fire him!" Another second later though, he was looking through unfocused eyes at the wall. "Snake! It followed us!"

"Johnny, you're fine. Its all right." Roy knew that Johnny was struggling with some issue that his fogged mind would not allow him to articulate, and was about to ask him what was up, but the door opened a bit, and a soft voice called in, "Jomahawadon?"

"Nakee!" Johnny tried to sit up but the restraints wouldn't allow this. "Ah...could someone untie me?"

Roy only vaguely heard his partner's voice. He could do nothing but stare at the dark haired girl as she walked in and he knew her immediately. Now that he saw her in person, he was just stunned that he had not realized the first moment he had seen her the previous morning that she was Johnny's sister. She was so much like his partner that he understood her expression, and body language. He felt she was reading him right back as easily as Johnny could. He knew a little twitch of her hand meant she would talk with him soon and did not mean to be rude. She walked past him and leaned over the gurney and spoke softly to Johnny in their language.

"Are you all right?" Nakee's voice cut through the drugged fog.

"I am not unwell." Johnny's voice was slurred but strong. He spotted the signs of his sister's tears and tried to reach up to squeeze her arm, but could not move it. "You look as bad as I am feeling."

"I was nervous all day. And then..."

"...I had to go get gnawed on." He smiled up and that make Nakee mirror his toothy grin. Seeing the two smile at the same time had Roy feeling taken aback by how much they both looked like each other. Johnny cleared his throat loudly. "Hey. Since you're here and before Roy gets away, lemme introduce you two. Roy, my sister Enakowahanahai Gage. And Nakee this guy is my partner, Roy Desoto"

Nakee turned to smile up at Roy. Within his eyes she saw a spark of something very familiar, and she felt as if he was a long lost relative and she had been waiting for him to come and help her through a trying time. It just seemed natural to sigh her relief and hug him and lean on him for strength. And Roy, just felt at home with her leaning on him. "Glad to meet you Nakee."

She sniffled and muttered something that sounded like, "Me too."

Roy patted her back.

Johnny's chuckled and woke them both from their reverie. "You know, this isn't exactly how I imagined this first meeting was going to go." He raised a brow. "I guess it turned out a lot better, except for the part where I'm flat on my back and tied up!" He struggled irritably. "I just hope I remember it tomorrow."

Nakee looked up at Roy, a sparkle of humor in her eyes. Roy knew what she was thinking, and spoke the words. "We'll remind you if you don't."

Nakee giggled, "That is exactly what I was going to say."

"No kidding?" Johnny asked.

"Not at all," Nakee and Roy both said, then looked at each other and laughed.

"Spooky," Marko finally spoke up.

The door banged open and Dixie came in with a small wheelie cart, covered over with a green cloth. "Time to scram off folks. We have a minor surgery to perform before that anesthetic wears off. I doubt he wants another shot like that."

"Hell no!" Johnny shuddered.

Marko and Roy exchanged glances and each gave Johnny a farewell nudge, and Nakee was left to lean over him. "Doctor Bracket said you don't want to stay here, but that it might be the best..."

"No," he shook his head. "Nakee, come on. I really just wanna go home."

Nakee looked down at him, her eyes were full of serious consideration. "How clear is your head right now?"

"Clear as glass."

"Not all glass is clear."

Johnny's brows arched into angry surprise. "You know what I mean!"

Nakee laughed at him, but then she sobered. "You know if you have a sudden freak out again I might not be able to stop you running naked into traffic."

He let out a long sigh. "I'm not gonna do that. I promise. I'm awake and in my right mind." He studied her expression and then smiled charmingly. He knew his smile and puppy eyes never worked on her, but he knew what would. "I'll buy you that pink squishy chair you want."

Nakee gasped. "OH! That is NOT fair at all! And I already know you won't let me keep it in the living room where your friends might see it!"

Johnny said not one word, but grinned up at her. He could see she was nearly drooling at this idea. She looked up at Dixie who was waiting patiently. The entire conversation between the siblings had been in their own language and Nakee translated. "He really wants to go home. But doctor Bracket wants me to keep him here. What would you do, Dixie?"

"Well, I'd go for the chair myself. I mean, how often do you see pink chairs?"

Nakee thought about that for a moment and then patted Johnny's right arm. "All right, it's a deal! But I want my chair before my day off!"

"It's yours! I promise. I'll have the guys help me get it tomorrow sometime." Johnny laughed as she turned to go.

"I'll be in the hall."

.

Nakee spotted Marko and Roy down the hall and jogged off to join the two. "Marko? Roy?" she caught up to them. "Are you two staying or going?"

"We can stay until the Captain calls us back," Roy answered.

Marko nodded. "Station is out of service until John and Chet are replaced."

"Why should Chet need to be replaced?" Nakee's brows went down in confusion. The lack of response from either man made her look at them both carefully and she realized they didn't want to talk about Chet. "What happened to him?"

Marko looked to Roy, and he knew very well when Nakee heard the story she was going to be a little bit more than angry with Chester B. Kelly. He guided her down the hall as he told her from the beginning what he knew...

.

A few moments later, Nakee was sitting on a bench between the two, head down. She'd finally pulled her nurse hat off and was looking at her white shoes.

"Nakee. I'm sure Chet didn't mean for things to turn out the way they did," Marko defended, and couldn't believe he was doing it.

"This is a really crazy day! When Johnny's done in there I'm going to take him home and I'm going to go hide in a shoebox!"

"So, how's life so far living with Johnny?" Marko asked to change the subject for her.

She looked up at him surprised and asked softly, "He told you I'm staying with him?"

"He was telling Roy about how you were starting work here and... I didn't mean to eavesdrop but..."

"It's no big secret." She smiled. "I am probably going to be staying with him for a few months by the looks of things. Maybe longer than that."

"I hope he doesn't drive you too crazy." Roy teased and she laughed at this.

"I think I might drive him crazy right back! I turned his bachelor pad into a home. Which, I doubt he would even notice the curtains I put on the windows, or the pictures I put up on the walls, and probably would not even bother to notice there's a table in the kitchen now. But, I know he'll be mad when he doesn't find all his old holy socks."

Marko and Roy both laughed at this, and they were still laughing when Bracket came along unnoticed and looked down at Nakee. "You uh...owe me a pot of coffee, Nurse Gage."

"Oh!" Nakee squealed and threw her arms around the doctor for a big hug which made him laugh, but she let go of him and saluted, "Sir!" She skipped away to make his coffee, leaving him smiling from ear to ear and Roy and Marko grinning helplessly.

"Never thought I'd meet a worse flirt than Johnny." Bracket mused.

The three men stared appreciatively as she trotted down the hall. Roy was still wondering how he had not guessed she was Johnny's sister the first time he'd seen her. She walked the same way. The handy talky in Marko's hand crackled out a call for Squad 51 to return to quarters. "Ah, guess that means we're back on again." Marko grumbled and answered a 'ten-four' and gave Bracket a nudge. "See ya later doc."

"Bye guys." Bracket waved them off, and went down the hall to the coffee pot to guard it. He was going to get the first cup of Nakee's coffee no matter what.

More To Come...


	17. Chapter 17

**JOKESTER**

~)51(~

Nakee was scribbling her signature on forms; prescription form, insurance form, release form, and had to let the receptionist copy her ID card. She got the prescription slips, and duplicates and stuffed them all in her purse. She never in her life thought that it would be her taking care of her older brother like this.

When they'd been kids though, hadn't she been the one to always lead them back home after he got them lost? She had a vivid memory of a day they'd seen a jackrabbit and chased it for miles; of course they'd ended up lost. Or rather Johnny was lost. She had known her way home, but he would not listen until she pushed him over and stormed off yelling, "I am going home!" And she had refused to listen to him say home was not that way. She was going her own way even if it meant she ended up dead, and if he had not wanted to follow that was fine! And, a while later, they walked through the back gate and their Aunt and Uncle had greeted them with worried relief and wondered where they had been gone all day. If she hadn't kept her head that day and many others, they might have wandered into the desert and died of heat exhaustion, or been eaten by a cougar. Or more likely, old man Harper would have caught them on his tumbleweed-infested dustbowl of a farm and whipped their hides before driving them home, each with a cookie in hand as big as a dinner plate.

The treatment room door opened, and Dixie wheeled Johnny out, his arm tucked into a sling and he was so groggy he looked downright miserable.

"I got the car waiting to take you home," Nakee grinned to Dixie, and lead the way out to the parking lot. The two women helped him into the passenger seat and buckled him in. "Dixie, thank you so much." Nakee hugged her warmly.

"Its all right, Nakee," Dixie let her go with a smile, and waited until her new nurse drove away before she retreated into the hospital.

.

Johnny woke up when a horn honked somewhere, and lifted his arm up off his eyes. He looked through the windshield half dazed. The driver's seat was empty of his sister, and the car was parked and silent in the shade. Ahead of him, he saw a storefront, 'RVA Pharmacy.' There were vivid posters all over in the store's windows with blue or red letters advertising the big sale items of the week; like waffles, disposable baby diapers, and flour. He rubbed one eye, yawned and then spotted Nakee coming out of the door with a paper bag in each arm. He wanted to get out and help her but the seatbelt was secured, and there was a rag wrapped around the buckle. She might as well have handcuffed him to the steering wheel, he thought.

"You awake?" She pulled the back passenger side door open.

"For the moment." He yawned as he spoke fuzzily, "Sleep just sneaks up on me."

Nakee giggled as she put the bags down on the seat. "I can tell. You suddenly dropped off in mid-sentence. It was pretty funny."

"Says you." He looked at the bags. "What'd you get?"

"Milk and food that we don't have to cook." She pulled a smaller white bag out of a larger brown one, and put it down within his reach on the front seat. "I got ice-cream. They only had little ones left, so I got vanilla for you and Peach for me."

"Sounds good." He poked his nose into the white bag and saw bandages and gauze and a tube of cream, antiseptic and two blue containers with white caps. One was an antibiotic and the other was a pain reliever. "My insurance get all this?"

"Yep." She started the car. "I should go over to the Used Barn and see if that one pillow is still there."

Johnny objected as she backed out of the parking space, "You bought like ten pillows the other day! What do you need more for?"

"The ones I got yesterday were to replace all those filthy ones on your sofa, and your bed."

"You threw out my pillows?"

"And half your socks!"

"Nakee!" he objected loudly.

"You go right ahead and be mad at me all you like. You know if Aunt Patty ever showed up, she would slap you upside the head and make you throw all that stuff out yourself."

"Mmmmpph...I know, but I liked my smelly old pillows. And it took me a long time to collect all those socks!"

"There were holes in them!"

"Air conditioning!"

"You wore those things?"

"Uh...no."

"Then why'd you keep them?"

"Cause I like my old socks!"

"You like to keep old socks around that you don't wear because they have holes in them?"

"I can collect old socks!"

"For what?"

"For...I don't know. I like to keep my old socks!"

"I think you're out of your mind. That's almost as bad as that old man who saved all his wife's teeth in a pickling jar."

Johnny did a double take at that. "I'm not saving someone's teeth in a pickling jar! I'm saving my own socks! This is a free country! I can collect anything I want!"

"You cannot seriously want to collect moldy smelly old socks!" Nakee yelled. "And if you were serious about collecting old socks, I'd think you would wash them before you stuffed them under your bed and never look at them again!"

Silence answered. Nakee didn't look at him until after she steered the car around a corner, and saw he was dozing again. If not for the sedative's lingering affects, she knew he might have kept on bickering with her all night about his sock collection. And though she didn't mind bickering with him, it was irritating while she was trying to drive. She drove down the road a ways and pulled into the parking lot. The city wasn't that difficult to get around in after all, she thought. The street signs were certainly easier to spot than they had been back home. She parked in the building's shadow, and looked over at him. Though she knew activity and motion and talking might wake him, it should not have kept him awake for more than a few seconds. Roy had given him a very large dose of Diazepam and only someone who was fighting the effects of the sedative would be waking at all. Something was bothering him, she thought—maybe it had something to do with having a friend throw a live snake at him.

Nakee knew he would hear her, even if he made no outwards signs of it. She checked on the rag she had tied around his seatbelt buckle. No doubt he could get out of it if he tried, but he would only manage it if he used his mind. "I'll be back in five minutes." She climbed out and shut the door.

Johnny heard what she'd said. A moment later, he heard some other voice, and then his sister was laughing and talking, "Oh My Goodness! Wow! It really is a small world! I didn't know you were coming here too!"

.

He faded out and away from the conversation he could hear out the open window between his sister and another girl. Somewhere between talk about having dinner sometime and getting each other's phone numbers he began to slip into a dream. He was back at the station, but he was alone and locked in. Somewhere just out of his sight in the darkness he could hear the sounds of hundreds of slithering snakes, and he wanted to get out, but every time he got to a different door or window, there was someone there, blocking his escape and laughing at him. At last he got to a window in the dorm, snakes slithering madly behind him. If he could just get to that window he would be all right. The window swung open like a car door and a snake shaped person was reaching toward him. It looked like a snake-faced Carl Phillips, right down to the sneer. One hand was reaching toward him. Carl was going to push him backwards into all the writhing snakes...

Johnny yelped as he startled awake. This was the last thing Nakee expected, and she let out a squeal of fright and jumped about a foot out of the seat and accidentally honked the horn. She grabbed her mouth to stop herself screaming again and looked ready to run away sobbing. The two looked at each other a minute, confusion and fright fading from Johnny's eyes while his mind settled back into working order. Nakee's anger at having been scared out of her wits melted into concern.

"Bad dream?" she asked shakily.

"Little nervous?" he countered.

They were silent as they grinned at each other, and it was Johnny who laughed first, and Nakee began to giggle. They sat for a several moments, laughing at each other and themselves. The humor faded out and Johnny stared out the window, a vague expression in his groggy eyes.

Nakee looked straight ahead out the window, giving him the option of not answering if he didn't want to. She asked in a gentle but very insisting tone, "What is going on with you? Why are you fighting the sedative?"

"I'm not fighting the..." he trailed off. It was an automatic response on his part to argue any point his sister made. Actually, he was fighting the sedative, and she knew it, and would pick on him about it until she got her answer. He was fighting it because he was trying so hard to think and not forget what had happened to him, because... "Nakee did the guys tell you what happened?"

"Yeah."

"Did you get the whole story out of them?"

"Yeah."

"Do they think Chet threw that snake at me?"

Nakee turned her head to look straight at him and opened her mouth to say yes, but something told her that he needed a different answer. The tone of his voice and the expression he wore told her his question was not to be taken literally. "It wasn't Chet, was it?"

"No."

"I knew something wasn't right!" She turned the key in the ignition. "It seemed wrong the minute I heard about it!"

Johnny wanted to reach for her arm and stop her from backing the car up just yet, but his left arm was bound up and his right arm wouldn't go that far. "Nakee, did Chet get into trouble for this?"

"I don't know. Roy and Marko were the only ones I heard from, and they just," she hesitated as she fumbled for words. "They...just...glossed over whatever it was Captain Stanley did to Chet. But I got the idea he was put off duty for the rest of the shift."

"Man! I bet he got suspended." Johnny leaned his head back on the seat, with a heavy exhalation. "Nakee, I gotta talk to him."

"Call him soon as we get home."

"No, I gotta see him in person!"

"But the ice-cream will melt!"

"Nakee, this is really serious! He could lose his job if I don't do something!"

"Shouldn't you go tell the Captain rather than Chet?"

"Enakowa!" Johnny whined. "I just wanna talk to Chet for now!"

"Okay! Okay!" she surrendered. "You sure he'll be home though?"

"Yep." He nodded. "Take a right when you get outta the parking lot."

She backed the car out of its parking space. "Just stay awake to give me directions."

"Yes ma'am," Johnny pressed a lever on the seat to bring it upright.

.

Nakee pulled the Rover into the driveway that Johnny pointed out. "Nice place." She took in a moderate white house and green lawn and lush garden. It all looked so clean and well kept that she would not have been surprised to see hired servants in crisp black and white uniforms. There was even wicker patio furniture on the front porch, along with baskets of hanging flowers.

"Enakowa get me out of this." Johnny grumbled.

"Oh," she pulled the knotted rag off the seatbelt buckle and clicked it open for him. Johnny clumsily rolled out of the vehicle and when he stood up, he was able to see Chet's car in the open garage. "He's here! Grab the ice-cream!"

"Huh?" Her eyes rounded. "Oh!" She fetched the bag from the back seat that contained milk and ice cream. When she straightened up with it, she saw Johnny had gotten way ahead of her and was halfway down the driveway already. "Wait!" she jogged after him, hair trailing behind. He didn't wait though, because he knew she'd catch up, after all he wasn't exactly fast on his feet at the moment. He went up the wheel chair ramp onto the back porch, because he figured he would never make it up the stairs. Through the screen door, he spotted Chet exactly where he knew he would find him-at the kitchen table with a can of beer in one hand and a sulky look on his face.

Chet looked up, drawn by motion and noise and stared wondrously at the dazed medic. "Johnny? What the hell are you doing here, man?"

He leveled a look at him through the screen. "I came to ask what Carl Phillips has against you."

.

More To Come...


	18. Chapter 18

Memo: Sorry it took me so long to post this. I had to do some rethinking. Kathy'ssis reminded me (very inadvertently) that sometimes it's worth taking the plot off the rails for the sake of having a cuddly moment. If not for her, I would have sadly left most of this Chapter on the cutting room floor.

* * *

**JOKESTER**

~)51(~

...Johnny leveled a look at Chet through the screen door. "I came to ask what Carl Phillips has against you."

Nakee jogged up the stairs behind her brother just as Chet was pushing the door open. "What did you say?" he demanded. Before Johnny could answer, he grabbed him by his good arm and hauled him in the house. "Get in here!"

He ignored Johnny's yelp of surprise and then held the door for Nakee as she walked in, and though he was very well aware of her feminine charms, he was too troubled to pretend to faint when she gave his cheek a hello kiss and then asked to borrow some space in the freezer. Although he wanted desperately to demand information from his co-worker, he'd been taught to be a hospitable host. He put Johnny in a chair, and seated Nakee, then made himself busy putting their ice cream and milk in the fridge. He noted there were three half-gallon cartons of milk. "You guys want anything?"

Johnny hung his head at the table and gave no answer.

"Hey, you all right, man?"

"Sedative is really strong," Johnny sighed, rubbed one eye, and lifted his head up again. He said very earnestly, "Chet, I'm sorry."

Chet nearly dropped the last carton of milk as he turned around to stare. He was clearly puzzled with his co-worker. Nakee looked from one to the other. She saw her brother really did look miserably apologetic right down to the usual puppy eyes. And Chet was staring at him open mouthed in shock. It took him a moment to find his voice and ask, "What the hell are you sorry for? If anyone should apologize to someone it's certainly not you! And certainly not to me, man!"

"Well, come on Chet! You should be pissed at me! I knew you didn't throw that snake at me and I didn't say anything about it!" He explained anxiously while he scratched his head. "I didn't even think about it. When Roy got me out of the shower, I should have realized what everyone would be thinking...especially after all those other pranks! A-and I should have told Hank right then!" Johnny hunched over a little, looking miserable. "I just..."

"John, stop apologizing! I mean: Come on! You weren't thinking straight and I don't blame ya. After something like that..." Chet trailed off and then shut his mouth. He seemed to not want to say anymore and finally put the milk in his fridge and closed the door. He knew that Johnny was not a big fan of soda and now probably was not a good time to offer him a beer. "You guys want some tea?"

"I'd love some tea." Nakee nodded.

"Yeah, that sounds good," Johnny muttered tiredly and rested his head on a fist.

"Okay," Chet agreed. He filled a whistling tea pot with water and set it on the stove…

.

After some time in which Johnny had dozed, Chet set a teapot on the table atop a crocheted green doily that matched the placemats. The motion and the sounds drew Johnny out of his light slumber. He took his teacup and pressed it against his chest to absorb the heat from it while he waited for it to be cool enough to drink. Chet sat down at the table and saw how tired Johnny was and how much effort it seemed to be taking him to remain upright in the chair. "You should go lay down, man."

"Like I could really get any solid sleep right now," he put down the cup to itch his head and then yawned into his sleeve. "I keep waking up, thinking about this."

"I hope your not losing sleep over me! I mean; I'm getting twelve paid hours here."

"Why would I worry about an ugly dope like you?" Johnny growled mock angrily.

Nakee rolled her eyes.

Chet was in too much of a serious mood to let the silly banter go on. He motioned at John. "What happened to you, man? How did you know I'm not the one that threw that snake at you? No one else believed me."

"Cause I saw his face just after he threw it." Johnny sighed and turned his cup around in his hand. "Until I saw him, I really did think it was you. See…"

.

The shampoo was swirling its way down the drain, and the water was no longer carrying away bits of bean soup. Johnny heard the shower door rattle again, but once again he ignored it. Though he knew very well someone was doing something, he decided to pretend he could not hear the door. There was no point in fighting it. Chet was going to do something to him eventually, and he thought he might as well let him get it over with sooner rather than later. So, he did nothing, and let himself appear vulnerable and unsuspecting. He expected to get the cold bucket of filthy mop water thrown at him, or maybe Chet was waiting just outside the door with a jar of spaghetti sauce.

He felt something cold and rubbery land on his shoulders, and figured it was Chet's rubber snake. He grasped a hold of it with one hand, ready to throw it back. He was just too keyed up with expectation to be remotely surprised by this, and lifted his sopping and soapy head to spit out angry words, "Chet, what the hell are you doing?"

But when he looked out from beneath his sopping hair and over the top of the shower door, he didn't see Chet standing there. He saw a water-blurred view of Carl Phillips, and his heart gave a heaving thump. Carl was not the sort of person who played pranks to be funny. Johnny felt as if he was shrinking inside of the small shower stall. At the same time, he realized the snake was not in fact a toy. It was writhing on his shoulders and slipping from his one handed grip. Before he could drop it, the serpent's head shot out and clamped a hold of the delicate skin on his inner forearm. Johnny screamed, terrified, and yanked it off and then leapt to the other side of the shower and slipped to the floor. The snake hit the shower wall and fell to the floor with a wet 'plop.' It righted itself with a grotesque sort of wriggling. Johnny gulped down his fright and forced himself to stay calm long enough to turn the privacy latch and push the door. It would not open. The snake was slithering toward him. "Stay calm," he half sobbed to himself, doing his best to ignore the snake and keep his fears back in check. He tried again to unlock the latch again, but he was certain it was not locked. Why wouldn't the door open?

"Johnny? You all right?" Chet called.

"GEMME OUT!" he screamed and shook the door with both hands. "CHET GEMME OUT!" Johnny looked down and saw the snake slithering between his legs, and he launched himself away from it, and landed on both feet, but slipped and fell. He landed belly down and found himself face to face with the snake and for a heartbeat he stared into cold black eyes. With the speed that only sheer adrenaline could have granted him, he threw himself over onto hands and feet and scrambled away as he drew in a shrieky gasp, and exhaled a scream, "HELP ME!" He threw himself at the door...

.

"You know the rest." Johnny shuddered at the memory of it. His teacup was now half empty. "Damn snake wasn't even eight inches from my face. I'm surprised it didn't bite my nose off or something. And that was the end of any coherent thinking. My brain just...well...I think it clicked off and after that I don't remember much. At least I don't remember clearly." He thought about this a moment and exhaled anxiously. "Which is probably for the best that I don't really..." He trailed off feeling very humiliated and wanted to hide under the table and lick his poor pride.

Chet's round-eyed expression spoke volumes of anger toward Carl Phillips. "I don't get it," he whispered. "Why'd he pull something so malicious like that? And why on you?"

Johnny rubbed one very tired eye, and then itched the back of his head. "I been wondering the same thing since he threw that snake at me. I was trying to figure things out before...when me and Roy were on the way..." he stopped talking to yawn. "...back to the station before I got in the shower. I know I was starting to touch on something but I can't think straight now. But something is just off. No matter who in our crew I try to imagine might have pulled all those pranks, I can't pin anyone down except for you who could take the blame."

"But I swear John, the only thing I did was the shaving cream and that..."

"Backfired," Johnny finished for him and drank the last of his tea. "And you admitted to it right off. Matter of fact, you proudly make sure everyone knows it when you prank someone and they fall for it. So I know it wasn't you doing that stuff. I think it was Carl. I just don't see how he or anyone other than one of our crew could have done that stuff. Nothing makes sense right now. Nothing adds up!" He sighed and then added for emphasis. "None of it makes sense at all. None of the guys on any shift would shut that cupboard door the wrong way. Even the new guy on B-shift knows how to close that door so it won't be stuck shut." Johnny trailed off into a short chuckle. "And I hear from Spike that their rooky is about as sharp as a bowling ball."

Chet laughed at the light joke and shook his head. "I heard the same."

Nakee sipped her tea and listened quietly.

"You know what I don't get?"

"Huh?" Chet wondered.

Johnny scowled as he itched his head again. "How in the hell did the Captain end up getting the gag shaving cream from my locker? The odds on that happening by accident are about one in a million. But for that to backfire like it did, someone must've known you put that gag shaving cream in my locker. And I know you would'a made sure no one was in the locker room before you put that in my locker."

Chet nodded to that. "I didn't even let Marko know about it."

"Yeah, I figured that," Johnny drank more of his tea, nearly emptied the cup. Chet refilled it for him. Johnny went on explaining. "No one! Not even Spike would dare to prank our Captain in front of a chief with a whoopee cushion and..." Johnny trailed off and giggled at the memory. Nakee shot a wide-eyed look at him and grinned.

Chet busted up into laughter at that memory. "OH MAN!" He threw his head back and absolutely hooted with laughter. "Oh that was great though! That one sounded out like a perfect foghorn! I really wish I Had set that one up! The look on the Cap's face was absolutely priceless!"

Johnny burst out into raucous cackles now. And the laughter of the two men was so contagious that Nakee couldn't help but to join them. It was a long time before the three were able to stop, and perhaps, Nakee thought, most of the reason they went on and on was for a need to release the stress of a very bad day for them all.

Johnny's head drifted downward as he slumped over forward. At the last inch or so, his body went limp and his forehead hit the table with a bony 'Thunk.'

Chet and Nakee stopped their giggling instantly and looked at him. Nakee knew that Johnny had finally lost his battle with the sedative and fallen asleep and that he was not going to wake this time—at least not easily. The long bout of laughter had exhausted him, and the telling of his tale had left him no reason now to continue to fight. "Jomahawadon?" she questioned. There was no response, but she had not expected one. She put a hand on his back to be sure he was breathing all right. Chet was looking at her expectantly, unsure of what to do. If he was not as concerned as he was for Johnny's well being, he might have laughed harder when his head had hit the table. "Uh...he okay?"

Nakee was counting Johnny's pulse and respirations and just nodded and held still for another moment while counting and watching the clock. Once she had an estimated pulse and respiration rate, she explained calmly, "It's just the sedative." She looked away from the clock and met Chet's eyes. "He's been fighting desperately against it all this time, and I suspect it was because he wanted to tell someone what he just told you now."

Chet felt a tightening in his throat, remembering how he'd yelled at Johnny earlier in the day and accused him wrongly of playing the pranks in such a sleazy way. Now he felt horribly guilty because instead of dwelling in anger, Johnny had fought against extreme exhaustion to help him.

"What now?" Nakee asked as she picked up her tea mug to drink.

Chet looked at her, then at Johnny. "Put him to bed?"

She shook her head as she set down her cup, and motioned at Johnny, "Not for him, Chet. He came here to help you, and I don't think he intended to stop there. What do we do now for you? Shouldn't we tell someone? I mean, doesn't the Captain have to file some kind of paper work about what happened? Shouldn't we stop that?"

"Oh." Chet's brows rose and he took a long deep breath. He wanted the whole mess fixed now, but he couldn't ask her, and Johnny looked like hell. Still, if it waited until next shift, by then the mark would be on his permanent record and it could take months to get rid of it. "Well, uh…you really shouldn't worry about it, Nakee. Now that I know someone knows the truth, we'll get it sorted out after he gets some rest. Let's just take care of..."

She cut him off, "In other words, no one's gonna listen to you, and he's not gonna wake up until tomorrow afternoon." Nakee grinned to him with her brows up. She patted Chet's arm. "I still have a dinner invitation to station 51, if you remember?"

Chet's eyes sparkled with gratitude as he looked at her, then up at the clock. "Dinner's on in less than a half hour. I wonder if Marko's still making Irish Stew."

"I intend to find out." She looked thoughtfully at the sleeping Johnny, then at Chet. "Can we dump him on your sofa for a little while Chet?"

"There's a guest room down the hall that he's welcome to use."

Nakee tried to shake Johnny awake to see if he would get up and walk, but it was pointless.

"Let's just carry him." Chet got up from his chair, and carefully lifted the damaged paramedic from behind. He took great care to not put any pressure on his injured arm. Nakee lifted his legs and together they carried him out of the kitchen. The two wanted to laugh all the way down the hall because Johnny flopped against Chet, and one arm dangled lifelessly while his mouth gaped open. Either Johnny was playing dead to be silly, or he was really out cold. They settled him into a double bed, each of them liberated one of his feet from a sneaker, and Chet lifted his upper body, while supporting his head so that Nakee could free him from his shirt. She pulled the sling off of him, and gently settled his bandaged arm into its own pillow. Chet took a blanket from the foot of the bed and covered him up.

Nakee tucked the blanket up around his shoulders and stared down tiredly for a long moment. "Come out to the car with me and I'll give you his medicines just in case."

Chet nodded, and lead her back to the kitchen so she could collect her purse off the chair. Then, he walked with her out the door and down the driveway to the white Land Rover. She handed out a white bag to him. "I doubt he'll wake up. This is just in case." She gave him the bag and then started the car. "But you'll have to call me at the station if he wakes up so I can direct you on what to do."

"Okay. Can you find your way back here all right?" He asked her through the open window.

"I think so. I'll call you if I get lost." She shoved the shift lever from park to reverse.

"You know the number?"

"Yep, I got it. I'll be back soon as I can." Chet watched as the rover backed out of the driveway and went down the road. He returned to his kitchen and set Johnny's bag on top of the refrigerator. It was already too quiet with Nakee gone and Johnny sound asleep, but at least now it was not an oppressive empty quiet. Before they'd come, the silence had been horrible and he'd felt like the whole world hated his guts and wanted him to go die. But now, thanks to the Gage siblings he knew that everything was going to be all right. He'd be back at station 51 for the next shift. With this in mind, he went about collecting the teacups, and fixed the chairs and the place mats.

He went down the hall after a few minutes to check on his friend and saw he'd tossed his right arm up over his head but otherwise not moved. "Thanks man." Chet whispered and walked out again very quietly. Johnny went on breathing deep and evenly, and a tiny thin smile formed on his lips for half an instant. He could not have answered Chet in his state of deep sleep, but he had heard him.

More To Come...


	19. Chapter 19

**.**

* * *

.

**JOKESTER**

~)51(~

As the land rover cruised down the road toward station 51, Nakee became aware of how hungry she was. She had been planning on having a snack after work, but only had gotten a cup of tea and a couple of cookies from Chet. Although the guys would probably not be expecting to see her, she hoped she could get a bite of the dinner she'd been invited to share with the crew. Of course, that was before, when Johnny had been expected to be on duty. She had no expectations now for dinner, but supposed she would probably see a few puppy dog eyes begging her to make coffee, especially from the Captain, and of course they'd share.

As she spotted the station and readied to turn, noted the bay door was open and the vehicles seemed to doze like a pair of friendly old dogs. The setting sun gleamed silver and gold on the Engine's windshield. Her pleasant thoughts were brought to a halt as she spotted the tail end of a familiar car as it disappeared into the station's driveway. "Oh no!"

It was Carl Phillips, and though she knew very little about department policies and procedures, guessed he was there to collect the very report that could possibly damn Chet to an unemployment line. There was no way she could just barge in and interrupt the glorified secretary to tell Hank what she had come to say. "What now?" she whispered as she halted the jeep in front of the station.

.

Mike sat at the kitchen table, one fist holding up his sagging head. He barely noticed it as the rookie, Sam, carefully reached around him to set down a clean glass and a set of silver-wear wrapped in a napkin. Patrick Knight, Johnny's replacement, reached around him and set down a clean dinner plate. The medic paused, three inches from Mike's head, looking at the general vicinity of his ear, noting the pouty mood. In an attempt to cheer him up, he shoved his arm out from under his head so that Mike nearly fell over. But Patrick only earned a glare while the others ignored the mischief, and Mike slouched in the other direction instead. "Awww, come on you guys!" Patrick whined loudly. "It can't be that bad!"

"Mmph!" Marko grunted his disagreement as he set down a big serving bowl full of steaming hot Irish stew. "Where's Cap?"

Roy, slouched at the other side of the table answered, "He's in the office sulking over his paper work."

"Oh, yeah, that report about..." Marko trailed off with a furtive and apologetic glance toward the two replacement guys. He really wouldn't have minded them knowing, but he just didn't want to have to explain what had happened to Johnny. Patrick picked up the hints from the body language and guessed what Marko was thinking. With a nod, he answered, "Roy told me."

"Told you what?" Sam wondered, as he didn't know.

Patrick opened his mouth, but looked uncomfortable with the idea of telling Sam something that probably was not his business, and he doubted the A-shift guys wanted to hear it. Roy noted the hesitance and piped up, "Chet glued the shower stall door shut and threw a snake at Johnny while he was in the shower."

Sam's jaw dropped. "You mean a live one?"

"Alive and kicking." Roy nodded and then scowled as he realized that snakes couldn't kick. "Errr..."

"Ahem!" came from the open back door. All heads turned and no one smiled to see Carl Phillips standing there with the usual sneer of smug satisfaction. As he stepped through the door, he asked, "Where is Captain Stanley?"

"In his office," Marko grunted. No one made any moves to act like Carl was in any way welcome. In fact, Mike was considering the idea of hiding the extra chairs so they'd have an excuse of why Carl could not stay for dinner should he try to hint for an invitation. The firefighters all watched as the unwanted guest exited to the bay.

.

Carl found the office door shut, and didn't bother to knock as he entered. "Captain Stanley, I..." He trailed off finding the room was not occupied. But there on the desk in a neat pile was the paper work he had hoped to find, and with a grin he picked up a report, stating that one Chester B Kelly had committed a misdeed against his co-worker. With the paper work in hand and a glint of triumph in his eye, he walked out of the office and looked toward the open bay door. "Magnificent!" he said to himself as he scanned the suspension report on Chester B. Kelly.

.

Marko sat in front of his empty plate and stared at the steaming hot stew in the big bowl. Roy and Mike didn't move to help themselves. Sam and Patrick looked a bit too self-conscious to want to eat while the others were not eating.

When the door to the bay opened and a very angry looking Hank stepped into the rec room, poor Sam nearly jumped out of his chair, wondering what he'd done wrong this time. The other guys were used to Hank's sudden strange moods, but a suddenly angry one was very unusual for their slow-to-anger-Captain. They all picked up on it with barely a glance at him. "What's wrong, Cap?" Marko wondered.

Hank's teeth were clenched, so whatever response he gave to Roy was not comprehensible. No one in the room had the guts at the moment to ask him to repeat himself, and didn't get the chance to do so anyway. Carl came through the door at that moment from the bay, and seemed so pre-occupied with what he was reading, that he nearly walked into Hank.

"Hello Captain Stanley!" Carl sniveled out an approximation of a friendly greeting, and coming from him was so false, it was amazing he'd made the attempt. "I found your paper work on your desk and I'll be going over to..."

"Give me that!" Hank snatched the papers from Carl's hand.

"Captain Stanley!" Phillips blustered out his shock with a puffing of his cheeks. He reached for the papers in Hank's hand. "I came to get the paperwork for..."

Hank pulled the papers out of Carl's reach as he shouted, "I'm not done with these yet!"

"It's fine, I can take them as they are!" Carl tried to snatch the papers back.

With a glowering scowl Hank lifted his arm straight up, papers in hand, far out of Carl's reach. The other man tried to reach up for them anyway, but failed miserably even standing on his toes. The men at the table watched with jaws slack, too surprised to even find the scene before them humorous.

Carl half whined as he gave up trying to stand on his toes as he reach the papers. "Just give me back those reports!"

"No! I don't think I will!" Hank's tone was jovial as he held the papers far up over his head and out of Carl's reach. "And what are you doing here anyway, Carl? Don't you punch out with the office ladies at four thirty?"

The men at the table all got wide eyed as jaws dropped and they looked at each other, wondering what was going on, while not daring to make a sound.

Carl reached up fruitlessly, "I was asked by the chief to come here and collect the suspension report on fireman Kelly's misconduct toward Paramedic Gage."

Hank just froze on the spot. His face was coloring and twisting into a mask of sheer fury and for a moment, he just stood their, temper stewing so furiously that veins were throbbing at his temples. "How in the hell do you know anything about this Carl?" His voice, though a normal volume, was edged with such rage that the guys at the table were all nervously debating the idea of running out the back door. Hank took a step closer to glare down at him, "I didn't tell anyone at headquarters about any kind of misconduct! If they don't know, then you certainly shouldn't know anything either! And no one would be sending you out to fetch paper work they don't know anything about!"

Carl was too shocked to speak for a long moment, but he recovered after a moment and spoke very calmly. "Captain I am sure your conduct is out of order. I highly doubt that the chief will be very thrilled to hear about your unwillingness to cooperate. Now, give me the reports or..."

"Shut your mouth!" Hank openly glared at the gibbering little pencil neck for a long angry moment. The men at the table were staring open mouthed, and at least two of them were turning colors trying not to laugh, and he shot off a sidewise glance to let them know they better not!

"Captain, the paper work. Now!" Carl growled.

Hank brought the paper work from up over his head, but didn't let Carl take it. Instead, he pulled the report on Chet out of the pile, threw the rest of the papers on the floor at Carl's feet. Then, without taking his eyes off the man's face, he carefully tore the page into about 50 pieces and dropped them over his head like so much confetti. "Take it," he growled. "And get out of my station."

Carl took a backwards step away from the mess, and brushed some shreds of paper off his arm. With a quick step, he moved out of the mess of shredded paper, obviously not willing swallow his pride and pick up that mess. "Captain, I'll be back in the morning with the chief to have a word with you in regard to your conduct, and also to discuss the behavior of the men under your command. And I expect your paper work to have been recopied by then."

"Thank you, Mr. Phillips," Hank's tone was dripping with sarcasm. "If you don't mind, I'll get the door for you!" With that, he grabbed Carl by his shoulder, and more or less shoved him out the door and slammed it behind him so hard, that one of his men yipped (Sam) and all of them startled in their seats.

A moment later, the men heard the engine of a car sound out far louder than necessary. There was a screech of tires, and the sound disappeared. Hank was very aware that his men were watching him as he walked over the floor and stood in front of the mess of papers. It was taking an enormous effort to calm himself down now. He was so angry he was shaking and the crew could see it. No one moved or made a sound at the table, but they were all watching him as he finally inhaled and exhaled and appeared to be calming down at last. He picked up the mess of papers, with an odd kind of stiff body language. He tried to be casual as he walked to the trash to throw out the remains of the report he'd done on Chet, and then headed out to the bay.

"Captain, what's wrong?" Mike's voice was almost child-like.

"Yeah, Cap!" Marko called.

"What was that all about?" Roy asked.

Hank stopped and looked back, jaw twisted up, and brows still knitted with fading anger. He sent a surrendering expression at his men, nodded, and motioned at them to follow as he went out the door. All five of them tumbled out of the room and caught up with him halfway through the bay on his way to the bunkroom. There came a confused inquiry from a very impatient Roy, "Cap, what is...?"

"Shhh!" Hank hissed, not wanting to hear any questions that would require lengthy or complicated explanations. He walked on to the bunkroom door, aware of his over-excited troop just a step behind. One long arm pushed open the door, and Hank called in, "You can come out now."

And out of the room came Nakee with a happy rise of brows and a very bright smile, she greeted, "Hi guys!"

MORE TO COME...


	20. Chapter 20

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* * *

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**JOKESTER**

~)51(~

Patrick and Sam took on the task of the dinner dishes as an excuse to give the A-shift guys, and their guest, the courtesy of their ignorance. Nakee stood by the coffee maker while Marko put away his leftover meal, smiling to him, "That really was good!"

"I'm glad you liked it, Nakee!" Marko put the bowl in the fridge.

Nakee stopped the coffee pot before it finished perking and took out the basket with the grounds and emptied it. Mike and Hank were fetching the coffee cups and cream and sugar to the table. "I'm sorry that I'm the one who had to tell you guys that about what happened." Nakee barely whispered as she sat down in Johnny's usual seat at the table.

The guys all settled down and looked at her, surprised. Just like Johnny, she was very sensitive to people's moods, and looked like she thought they were upset because of something she'd done. Roy spoke up, "Nakee, don't be sorry! And if you didn't barge into Cap's office earlier, that report would be in Carl's hands right now."

The lot of them fell silent as the coffee pot went around the table, and sugar and cream was stirred into it. Each person had a chance to take a sip, and smile their appreciation.

"Why does a man lock another man into a shower stall and throw a live snake at another less than a year after he was bitten by a rattler?" Nakee wondered aloud. She rubbed one eye and blew out a breathe of frustration. "What reason could he possibly have to do that? And was he trying to make it look like Chet did it?"

The guys all reacted with curious expressions and some fidgeting to the questions she was asking.

"Carl was certainly anxious to get that report you did on Chet." Roy commented with a smirk aimed in Hank's direction. The Captain grinned. Since he'd calmed down they'd all had a good laugh about the scene he'd made, and now they knew why he'd been so mad at Carl.

Mike drew in a small gasp and looked at Hank and then Roy. "Now we know that Chet didn't throw the snake at Johnny. I wonder what else he didn't do." He looked at the others as he spoke, and gestured. "You know the doors of the closet kept getting stuck. But everyone who works here knows you have to shut them just right. All I can think of is that someone who doesn't work here was shutting those doors wrong." Mike drew them into a scenario.

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~)Past(~

Carl poked his head out of the kitchen, and peered slyly around the corner into the bay. The squad was gone with the two paramedics. Through the open rear door he could see Stoker and the girl. Out the front, he spotted Chet clipping grass at the base of the flagpole. Stanley was in his office, grumbling to himself about the paper work. Lopez was busy cleaning up the bunkroom. Toothily, he smiled a villainous evil scowl, and cackled as he tiptoed around the corner, a satchel over one shoulder. He opened a supply cupboard. Everyone was exactly where he wanted them to be—conveniently out of his way.

While darting a glance to the left or right on occasion from beneath a dark brow, he took items from his bag and began to construct an evil device on the top shelf that was sure to ruin someone's day. Once finished, there was a catapult with a bowl full of water ready to be launched at the first person who would be unlucky enough to open the door. He held onto the catapult to stop it launching while he pulled the left side door closed. The most critical moment was in closing the door without letting go too soon.

A stupid squeak-bone toy fell off the shelf. It made a soft noise as it hit the side edge of someone's boot before plopping to the floor. Carl froze, standing on the toes of one foot as he worriedly looked left and right. It seemed only the dog heard the sound, and he trotted straight into the cupboard to fetch his toy. He heard footsteps on the other side of the engine, and immediately shut the door, and caught his thumb between them! His blood boiled, and he clamped his free hand over his mouth to stop himself yelling. But the footsteps disappeared back into the bunkroom and he yanked, then pulled, and freed his thumb from the doors and brought the throbbing angry red pulsating digit in front of his face and whimpered pathetically.

And he heard the dog make a muffled sound as he chewed on his toy inside the closet, and this made Carl smile his evil smile once more before he laughed triumphantly. Someone would hear the dog and open the cupboard to let him out. He slithered very calmly back into the rec room, wearing a sneer of satisfaction, and once safely away from the scene he rung his hands and laughed to himself with evil excitement.

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~)51(~

The guys all looked blankly at Mike, who was grinning at his own humorous story. "Well?"

Hank and Roy looked at each other, both had raised one brow in a Spock-like expression.

"You've been watching too many cartoons, Mike!" Marko laughed at him, and Nakee and the others burst into fits of giggles.

"That makes a lot of sense actually." Hank put in as the laughter died. "Until now, Chet was the only possible culprit."

"I didn't even listen to him when he said it wasn't him." Marko leaned his face into his hands, covering his eyes.

Roy's shoulders slumped and he put his hands over his ears. "We just assumed he was guilty and didn't give him any space to prove otherwise."

Hank looked miserable and sighed. "We might as well have called him a witch, put up a stake out back and prepared the barbecue." He rested his mouth on his joined hands.

Mike looked at the three, noting the see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil pose and couldn't help but to chuckle at them. If only he had a camera.

Marko felt like he'd betrayed Chet by not believing him about his possible innocence, and now wanted to make sure to not let that happen again. "Is it possible that Carl set up the catapult again later? You know, just before Chief Brennings came?"

"Yeah, the doors were stuck when we were trying to get our hats." Mike reminded.

The guys all thought about this a minute, and Hank shook a finger to Marko. "I don't see how he could have. We left on a run and Carl was in my office. When we got back he was gone and Chet finished cleaning up the bay from the first time, and he had that closet opened. I didn't see Carl again until the Chief came to do the inspection. Unless he has a key to get in while we're not here, then he couldn't have..."

"He does have a key!" Nakee shouted out so loud, she startled the poor Captain, but grasped his arm apologetically. "Yesterday when I brought the donuts and Johnny's things..."

.

By the time Nakee explained all the details of her story, the guys were all scowling down at the table again. Mike drew in a sudden breath. "Cap when we came back after that from our run, the cabinet door was stuck again."

"And it was completely wrecked." Roy said looking to Mike with raised brows, to get a return nod.

"Let me give a guess and put this one together then," Marko requested and began to think...

.

~)Past(~

Carl entered through the back door, having no idea that he'd been seen with a key that he wasn't supposed to have. He flipped on the light switch and took a look around. The station was empty as he'd expected and he knew the guys wouldn't be back any time soon. Carl went into the locker room to check on things that he had stashed in lockers that belonged to off duty men. It was going to be a fantastic joke and he just wished that he could be around to see this one!

He began to take things out of the supply cupboard, and laughed giddily as he did so. He'd seen the girl get doused earlier, and he'd been around to witness the aftermath of the second water catapult he'd set up. Both of his water catapults had done a far better job of setting up Chet Kelly than he could have hoped for! This one was going to be even better! He kicked boots and helmets and things out of the closet, making room for the necessary props.

After some time of working, he heard a knock on the back door. At first he ignored it, hoping the person would go away. "Dammit," He growled as he heard a girl shouting that she knew he was in there. Very quickly, he threw everything haphazardly back into the closet, and slammed the doors shut. He grabbed a clipboard off the wall, so he'd be able to pretend to be working when he pulled the door open.

And thank goodness she didn't want to stay. She quickly dropped off things for one of the paramedics, and dashed off. Carl went back out into the bay to complete the construction of his grand prank, but found he couldn't get the door open. "Oh no!" He rattled the doors anxiously. "OPEN!" He kicked at the bottoms of both doors and twisted and tried to force them to open. "Dammit!" The only way he'd get them open was to use a forceful entry tool-which were all locked inside the closet.

But now the girl had seen him, and the prank couldn't get set up. He had to think of something. Some reason as to why he'd been here. He stashed his props back into the locker room, then stood in the bay, thinking of what he could do to make it look like he'd been there for a reason. As the idea struck him to make up some bogus paperwork and leave a note on the fridge, he felt something warm running down his leg. "What the...?"

He looked down and noted the station's mascot was pissing on his leg and this made him sneer with disgust. He shook his leg and walked away grumbling to himself.

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~)51(~

Everyone at the table tossed their heads back and laughed. They knew Boot probably had not really wet on Carl's leg, but couldn't help but to enjoy that detail. Hank had to agree with the rest of Marko's scenario. "That does make a lot of sense."

"I'd like to know what he could have been setting up." Mike wondered as he played around with his coffee cup.

"Maybe he was trying to set up that pie that hit you in the face this morning." Roy pointed out.

Nakee snorted and then laughed aloud, and so did everyone else but Mike. "You got a pie in the face?"

He blushed miserably as they all laughed, but also smirked. "Yeah."

"Carl wouldn't have had much trouble unlocking the back door and setting up a catapult."

"But how would he know when to walk in here like that at a time when he wouldn't get caught?" Roy wondered. "I put the dishes away this morning. If there'd been a pie in the cupboard, I'd have gotten hit with it. And I find it a little funny that it was put into the cupboard that we only open when someone needs a baking sheet!"

"Someone put it in the cupboard after you put the dishes away." Hank waved carelessly.

"Whoever it was knew Mike was gonna need to get a pan." Marko pointed out.

Hank looked at Roy who appeared to be really upset all of a sudden. His expression was one that suggested he was disgusted and scared at the same time. "What's the matter pal?"

Roy looked up at him, started to speak, but the phone rang. "I'll get it," Marko got up to answer the phone, but only got out two words of his greeting and then, "Chet! Hey man! What's..." he looked at Nakee. "Yeah, she's here."

Nakee got up to take the call. "What's wrong?" she listened for a few minutes and then hushed him. "Calm down, take it easy. How much blood is there and is the rash spreading?"

Her questions got both Roy and Patrick to look on with their undivided medical attention and concern. Everyone knew the conversation was about Johnny. "What's his level of conscious?" She paused, waiting, and appeared to be listening intently, and looked to Roy and said mostly for his sake. "So, he's got a rash on the back of his head and he's scratching so bad he made himself bleed, but he doesn't realize it because he's not conscious enough even know he's scratching his head? Do I got that right?"

Roy looked anxiously to the Captain. Hank knew Roy was asking to be able to run off and check on his partner, but that wasn't up to him, so he shrugged.

"Yeah...uh, Chet, look for any signs of swelling around his face and throat and listen to his airway." Again she waited a minute and then looked relieved when she got an answer. "All right, Chet. He's probably fine then. I'm thinking maybe the rash is caused by something external. But we'll be on the safe side. I'm on my way right now and I'll bring Roy and Patrick along. Hang in there." She hung up and looked back at Roy, then at Hank.

"I'll call it in." Hank offered. Roy and Patrick dashed for the squad.

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MORE TO COME...


	21. Chapter 21

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**JOKESTER**

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~)51(~

Nakee followed the squad to Chet's house, and the three of them all went around the back and walked into the kitchen. Here they found Chet holding onto a shirtless Johnny who was head down in the sink under the water. Roy got a look at Chet's wary expression and couldn't even bring himself to say hello. Nakee moved up against Johnny's other side as the two paramedics put the medical equipment on the kitchen table. "Chet...uh...?"

He met her eyes and knew what she was asking. "He just wouldn't stop scratching. After we hung up, I went back to look at him, and he was really doing a number on himself. So, I remembered he was still soapy earlier when we got him outta the shower, and dragged him outta bed. I don't think he knows what's going on, but when I put his head under the water he seemed really relieved."

She nodded at this logic and shut off the water so she could have a close look. "Jomahawadon? Do you hear me?"

He only gave a grunt of an answer, but it was enough for her. She probed along the base of his skull as she studied the skin and moved his drenched hair around. She saw some very red, cracked and angry looking patches of skin. He'd scratched so much that he'd torn out some of his hair and had some fingernail gouges in a few spots. She suspected he was conscious enough to scratch, but not enough to realize he was hurting himself. Being so close to his head made her realize how strongly he smelled of soap, and turned the water back on. "This is from soap. I can smell it."

"I knew it was something silly and I really didn't need to call on you guys." Chet looked forlorn.

"No trouble, Chet." Patrick lectured. "Him being on Penicillin like that and getting a rash. I'd have called us too. Right Roy?"

"Right." Roy agreed as he nodded to Chet.

After another few minutes of Nakee and Chet making sure he was soap free, she backed up to let Roy take her spot. "Come on, Junior, let's get you outta there." He and Chet pulled him upright, and they topped his head with a towel and sat him in a chair. Patrick came forward and rubbed Johnny's head dry. When he let go his hair stood up in spikes.

"Lemmee gooOooo," Johnny tried to put his head down on the kitchen table, but Roy stopped him to check his pupils while Nakee held his head from behind to have a better look at the rash. Patrick came in with the BP cuff. Chet watched amazed while the nurse and two medics mercilessly harassed him and yet he still managed to drift back to sleep. "Is he sleeping like that because of the sedative you gave him, Roy?"

"Yeah." Roy nodded as he listened to Johnny's chest.

Nakee was inspecting the back of Johnny's head, and looked up at Chet. "Did he want any of his medicine?"

"No. He didn't wake up at all."

Nakee went to the phone on the wall and dialed a number from memory. "Pat, what was his BP?"

"110 over 76."

She nodded, and shortly was in a conversation with Doctor Morton, efficiently relaying information to him. Roy let Johnny put his head down on the table and rest and kept a hold of him to be sure he didn't fall, but he was looking at Chet, trying to find something to say to him. Patrick sensed this, and put one protective hand on Johnny's back. "I got him man."

"Thanks Pat." Roy gave him a grateful nod, tugged on Chet's sleeve and then walked away into the other room. Chet followed after a few seconds. Patrick stayed as he was, one hand on Johnny for safety. He listened to Nakee giving every detail to doctor Morton that she could think of. "Okay Doc. Should I call you back?" She listened and nodded. "Yep. I'll be quick." She set the phone down, leaving Morton on hold as she looked to Patrick. "He said to have a look at the bite."

Johnny grumbled with disdain as he was disturbed again, but Nakee let him keep his head down in sleep and Patrick cut the old bandage off his arm. It was the first time she'd gotten to see the wound, and it looked just as she'd suspected it would. Some of his skin had been torn off in an oval shape, and there were two cuts, now stitched closed from when Doctor Bracket had extracted the snake's teeth. She inspected it carefully to be sure nothing unhealthy was coming out of it, and that it was not showing any sign of infection. Very gently she touched along the side of the bite wound and pressed her finger down.

"mmmph!" Johnny complained in his sleep and his arm jerked slightly. But he faded out again so quickly that she knew it wasn't really bothering him very much. She grabbed the phone again, "Doctor, it looks fine to me. He's got feeling in it, good circulation and no discharge. Now that we've cleaned the rash on his head, it's already fading, and we haven't put anything on it yet. All right, thank you doctor." She hung up and was about to talk to Pat, but a lot of yelling came from the other room that drew her eyes.

"No way man!" Chet yelled angrily and had a look of disgust and contempt on his face and he waved both hands as he shook his head. "No! Just no way! That is plain sick! I have no idea what is making you think that!"

Patrick and Nakee exchanged looks with each other, and decided to ignore the exchange. Chet was freaking out and bickering, but at least he and Roy were talking. She lifted Johnny's arm and accepted Patrick's help in cleaning the wound and redressing it. Once done, he took a tube of cream and applied it carefully to the back of Johnny's scalp. He muttered in his sleep, but otherwise remained dozing with his head and right arm on the table.

It seemed as if Chet and Roy were almost having a heated argument. And Patrick didn't hear most of it, but began to think Chet was listening to whatever Roy was saying, and only objecting cause he didn't like what he was hearing, and not because he disagreed. After a time of wrapping gauze on Johnny's arm, Patrick began to pack up the boxes.

Roy saw they were done and returned to the kitchen with Chet in tow, still talking to each other.

"Come on, Roy, you gotta be able to give me a better reason than that to think what you're thinking! I mean-that is sick! Really sick!"

"I don't have time to explain it to you! You just have to think about it a little while on your own. You'll see it's obvious, that's the only possibility!" Roy spoke very loudly and motioned to Johnny. "And I'm pretty sure he was starting to put the whole mystery together. I wish he was conscious so I could talk to him about it. But, by the looks of things he's not gonna be coherent again until morning."

Chet exhaled a snort of laughter, and looked over at the table. Nakee was just tucking in an end of gauze on Johnny's arm, and Patrick closed the last box.

Roy sighed realizing it was time to go. "What'd the doc say, Nakee?"

"Basically put him back to bed and bring him into see Bracket in the morning." She looked uncertain and nervous about this as she met Chet's eyes.

He knew he'd have to let the siblings stay the night unless he wanted to help her get Johnny home. He also knew she was nervous of how that was going to look, but she really didn't have much of a choice.

"Don't worry Nakee." He winked at her. "I'll introduce you to my sister when she gets home. I'm sure she'll have a nightie you can borrow."

She smiled back gratefully. "Thanks Chet."

"Lemme give you a hand then." Roy got on one side of Johnny and Patrick on the other. "Come on pal." They lifted him up.

"OooooOOOo..." Johnny groaned at the disturbance. He was so limp in sleep that he was just dead weight. His arm flopped and his head lolled and then dropped against Roy's shoulder. Chet lifted his legs and the three carried him down the hall back to bed. Nakee followed to help get him settled.

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~)51(~

As the squad returned home, the guys were in the kitchen, all waiting impatiently for news on both of their co-workers.

"Johnny's okay!" Roy joined the A-shift bunch at the table, while Patrick joined Sam in front of the television and pretended to not be listening. Roy sat down to tell his work family everything that had happened at Chet's house.

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"Roy, did you believe him when he told you he'd only done those two pranks-the shaving cream and the spider?" Hank asked seriously.

"Yeah. I believed him."

"I don't think he'd have any reason to deny doing that stuff at this point." Marko put in and Mike agreed with a nod.

"Cap, there's uh...I have a theory, but I don't want to say it until I find some evidence to support it." Roy put his arms on the table and leaned forward. "I need details. How in the world did you end up going to Johnny's locker for shaving cream?"

Hank leaned back in his chair and gathered his thoughts...

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~)Past(~

A rather furry faced Hank pushed through the locker room door and flicked on the switch. He grabbed a towel on his way to his locker, pealed off his jacket and uniform shirt, then picked up his shaving kit and headed for the sink. When he pressed the trigger on the can though, only air came out. He tried to shake it, but now realized it was completely empty, and he dropped it in the trash can. The only explanation for it to be empty was that he'd accidentally switched his nearly full can for someone else's empty one from his previous shift at station 45. Only Marko used the brand he liked, and he headed out to ask him to use it. A minute later, he returned and started to help himself to Marko's shaving cream, but he didn't see it in the locker. He didn't want to dig too deep through his stuff, and moved over to Mike's locker. There was his can of shaving cream, but it was light as a feather and when he squeezed the trigger, once again, he got only air. "You gotta be kidding me!" He put the can back and slammed the door.

"What the hell?" He asked aloud as he searched the top shelf of Chet's locker and found two cans of shaving cream, different brands but both were completely empty. He was thinking of having a word with all of them about showing up for a two-day shift with no shaving cream! But he debunked that idea quickly because he was guilty of that very thing, even if it was accidental. He didn't even bother to check Roy's locker, because he used the pine stuff, and he hated to smell like a tree. But he opened Johnny's locker, and there was a can on the top shelf and thank goodness it was not empty! He took it to the sink, lathered his face, and began to shave.

He thought his skin looked green though as he shaved off the whiskers. This had to be a trick of the light though. The florescent bulbs made things look odd at times. But as he finished on shaving and rinsed his cheeks, he looked in the mirror and realized...

"Oh no!" He felt his heart pounding in his chest. He was green!

Frantically he snatched the shaving cream can and read the label. It was a trick! He knew this was Chet's sort of prank. "I'm gonna kill him!" He bowed his head into the sink and tried in vane to wash off the dye with soap. When he looked back up at himself in the mirror, found he was still sporting a happy shade of green, a bit brighter than before in fact. "Oh no!" He raced to his locker for the alcohol, and already he was hearing snorts of laughter in his imagination.

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~)51(~

Mike and Marko both laughed heartily at their poor Captain's story. And they knew Hank was a bit sensitive and easily embarrassed but couldn't help laughing at the poor man. Hank sat looking a bit miserable, resting his head on one hand. But he grinned at the laughter anyway.

Roy wasn't laughing though. "You know. Every one of you used my shaving cream this morning. Except you Cap. You hate my shaving cream so much you'd rather shave with soap."

No one said a word as that statement sank in. Hank scowled and rubbed a cheek. "How the hell does everyone run out of shaving cream except for..."

"...except for the one person who uses a brand you hate?" Roy asked.

"So someone dumped out all our shaving cream?" Marko wondered.

"Yeah!" Mike agreed. "Someone must have done it. I was certain mine was at least half full when I got in yesterday."

"Chet must've done it."

"No. It wasn't Chet." Roy said pointedly. "I asked him about this already and he made it very clear to me, all he did was just trade Johnny's shaving cream for the trick one. And he did not empty out anyone else's."

No one said anything, and all the guys all sat with their hands near their faces. Roy carried on. "Cap, someone emptied out all the shaving cream, including yours but left mine. So, whoever this is, knows you don't like to smell like a tree, and also knew Chet had switched Johnny's shaving cream."

"You're making my head hurt with the logistics." Hank made a motion as if to rub at his head with one hand. "Just tell us what you're getting at."

"Well..." Roy sighed as he gathered his thoughts. "Unless Johnny figured out about the shaving cream switch and then decided to set you up, which I doubt, then there's only one other possibility..."

.

~)Past(~

Chet walked into the locker room, and made sure no one was coming in behind him. From his own locker, he took a can of shaving cream that he'd had hidden in the back. With a silly grin and a giggle, he opened Johnny's locker and made the quick switch. And good, Johnny still had the usual brand. The gag would not have worked otherwise. Chet took the real shaving cream and stashed it in his locker. Still grinning to himself, he exited the locker room.

But someone had seen him do this, and a short time later as the station was called out on a run, Carl came out of his hiding place inside the locker room. He peaked out the door to be sure both trucks were gone. Assured that he was alone, he went to see what Chet had done, and discovered the shaving cream can was actually a gag that would dye someone's skin green. He smiled as he thought about this a moment. Captain Stanley needed a shave, he knew.

He went from locker to locker and one at a time emptied the shaving cream cans out into a sink and rinsed it all down the drain. But it was taking a bit longer than he expected to empty them all out, and he was running out of time. He'd been watching the men for a while to learn their habits; otherwise he wouldn't be able to pull off the pranks so perfectly without getting caught. He'd gathered that Hank hated to smell like a tree, because he would get disgusted by the smell when Desoto shaved. So, he didn't have to worry about that. And if one guy's shaving cream was just missing out of his locker, he'd think he'd forgotten it. He took the final can out of a locker. A moment later, he'd disappeared back into his hiding place.

MORE TO COME...


	22. Chapter 22

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~)51(~

The answer to Roy's possible scenario was silence. Sam and Patrick had heard it too and couldn't help but to look back, both owl-eyed with shock. They were supposed to be pretending they weren't listening though and looked at each other and then profoundly glared at the television.

Hank shook his head as he motioned with both hands. "No! You have got to be kidding me! I see your point in thinking he was watching us...but..." He shuddered. "From inside the locker room? It's too creepy, even for Carl! What you're getting at... Carl would have had to watch us for weeks to pick up details like you're suggesting and..." He trailed off and shivered as he rubbed one arm uncomfortably. "No!"

"Chet had the same reaction when I told him what I was thinking." Roy pointed out and the guys all stared hard at him.

"Someone had the details, Cap." Marko pointed out. "I look back on things now and I have to believe Chet. Someone put a rubber snake in Johnny's locker. When I went to get some clothes for him, it fell on me. It was Chet's. And he was really shocked when it fell on me, like he didn't know that was gonna happen. And when the chief was here, Chet wasn't in here much and when he was, it would have been a spectacle for him to walk to a chair and put a whoopee cushion on it before you sat down!"

Roy and Patrick and Mike helplessly giggled over this. Sam looked unsure if he should join in or not, but certainly looked like he wanted to laugh. Hank leaned his cheek on a fist and blushed, but he had to laugh a little too. "I wanted to break his head."

"I think you made the Chief's day though." Mike said around his helpless chortling.

Hank bowed his head and groaned, but then laughed. Mike knew the poor man was a bit humiliated and just had to give his arm a slap of reassurance.

"You know, if you think back on it, Carl was the only one who wasn't surprised by that noise." Mike reminded.

"Yeah." Roy agreed. "What'd he say to you Cap?"

Hank just immediately scowled in such a way that made everyone stop laughing instantly. "He said for me to excuse myself."

Everyone laughed for a few minutes at this, including poor Sam who seemed nervous of doing so. Roy exchanged a glance with Mike. Hank just glared down at his hands now, cleared his throat and looked up at Roy as if begging him to change the subject. "You got more to say, don't you?"

"Yeah." Roy nodded. "When me and Johnny came back here and he headed for the shower, the four of us ended up right here in this kitchen. Chet was in the washroom cleaning the floor. Johnny was in the shower. I believe that Carl is the one who threw that snake; like Johnny said but, how in the hell did he get in here? How did he just happen to be here with such perfect timing? How the hell could he have done what he did without being in here already and prepared with the right stuff?"

The other three were making faces of realization at this question. Roy nodded and began to tell a possible scenario.

.

~)Past(~

The sounds of scrubbing could be heard all over inside the locker room. Chet was in the back, sulking and cleaning the tile grout. The door opened and in came a bean soup covered Johnny. He stripped quickly and headed into the shower.

Having seen it all, and figuring the entire situation would prevent anyone else coming into the locker room, Carl Phillips stepped out of a locker in the front row. He had a feeling that even if Chet sensed someone in the room, he wouldn't poke his nose out. From the locker he'd been hiding in, he brought out a tube of glue, and a bag that contained a live snake...

.

~)51(~

Hank shivered with disgust. "No!"

"It's the only possibility, Cap." Roy insisted.

Mike motioned with one hand at Roy. "But how could he have gotten Out of the station without us seeing him?"

Roy motioned at the back door. "Chet told me he saw someone run out of the locker room, and he didn't see who it was. But we were all in here, so it wasn't one of us he saw. If it was Carl, and I'm pretty sure it was, all he would have had to do is hide somewhere around the engine, wait for us to all pile into the locker room, and he could just wait and run out the back door."

Marko was nodding. "It does add up. But it's like Cap said; that is just really creepy. I mean, you're saying this guy was watching us in the locker room!"

"If he was in one of the lockers in the front row, right where he could see the mirror, he'd have a clear view of most everything going on in there." Mike pointed out looking disgusted.

Hank let out a grumbling exhalation. "If there was a certain locker in that row, that we ignore because the door seems to get stuck all the time?" He paused and waited for everyone to look at him. "What say we go open it? If what you're saying is true, there would have to be some evidence, at least a mark from a shoe or something."

The four of them got up and headed into the locker room. Out of curiosity, Patrick and Sam followed after them. Mike went straight for the locker in question, the further set from the door, nearer to the mirrors. He tried the handle, but it didn't move, but then noted the handle didn't turn at all as if it was just there as a prop. He put on a face of concentration and pulled on the knob, and it slipped off into his hand. "What the heck is this?" He looked at the space that had once held a doorknob, and it now showed a lock of some sort that could only be opened with a key. All the guys looked at it, then at each other.

Hank looked around at his men, wondering, "Does anyone use this locker?"

"No one on our shift does," Patrick informed.

"I never seen anyone on C-shift use it," Mike added.

Hank cleared his throat heavily then looked to Sam. "Go, get a crowbar, Pal."

Sam scrammed off half frightened, and returned in an instant with the requested item. Mike took it, and pried the door open.

"My God!" Hank gasped as he pulled out an empty sack that usually was meant to contain a snake. There was a nearly empty tube of glue, a can of shaving cream, a couple of different tools. And at the bottom shelf of the locker was a small stool and beneath this was a lot of dirt as if from shoes, and the right kind of scuffmarks. Marko took the glue to sniff it and made a face. "That's the same stuff that got used on the shower door, Cap."

Hank took the stool out of the locker, and saw the legs had left scrape marks on the bottom shelf. "It looks like he camped out in there for a while, like he's been watching us for weeks."

No one said a word as the Captain put the stool back in the locker, and then took the glue back from Marko. Everyone looked pretty disgusted now, and Hank looked downright violated and kept rubbing one arm. "Why the hell did he do this? Why go to all this trouble? What could he possibly have to gain by doing this?" He looked at the remaining mess of the doorless shower and shivered.

"What now?" Mike wondered.

Hank tossed the tube of glue he'd been holding back into the locker, slammed it shut, then put the knob back in place. He was pissed off and they guys knew it. "We ALL keep our mouths shut for now and pretend we don't know anything." He walked out of the locker room, and everyone knew to let him alone when he went to think in his office. He put in a call to Chet's house, and after a long conversation with his lineman, he hung up feeling much better, but still disgusted too. Carl had been watching them? For how long? Why?

.

It was hard to accept that the weasel had been hiding in that locker for some time, watching them in the bathroom. It was sickening. His spine was just tingling with disgust. And maybe some of those times when he'd imagined he'd heard a snort of laughter-he hadn't imagined it at all. He went on helplessly torturing himself as he dwelled on the issue, thinking back to times he'd been in the shower and felt like someone had been staring. Now he knew that hadn't been his imagination. A soft knock on the open door drew him to lift his head. Had it been Mike or Roy or Marko, or even Patrick, he might have chased them off. But it was Sam, and he had two cups of coffee in hand. "Come on in, Sam."

Sam entered and put the coffee down in front of Hank. "I...gotta tell you something, Captain. Can I...shut the door?"

He noted how troubled the kid looked, and motioned his assent. Sam shut the door gently, and sat down. He fumbled for words, and then ran a hand through his hair and seemed frustrated with himself.

"I'm all ears, Pal. What you have to say is confidential."

"I..." Sam cleared his throat and gave him a very apologetic glance before he looked down again at his knees. "Is-is it confidential between other Captains too, sir?"

"Course it is. No one else will know."

Sam nodded. "You...were wondering why Carl would go through so much trouble like that..." He cleared his throat. "I-I think I know sir."

Surprised, Hank leaned forward in his seat. "Do you?"

Sam sipped his coffee. "Well, about a month and a half ago..."

.

~)Past(~

Captain Moor grabbed a hold of Sam's shoulders and looked him dead in the eyes. "Kid! I know! Dammit, I know you try hard, but you just..." He was so mad he was shaking, but trying not to be unkind. "I really don't think you have what it takes to be a fireman. I'll put in a good word for you to do something else. I'm really sorry kid. This just isn't for you. Not everyone can do this job."

Sam bowed his head, feeling ashamed of himself. He knew it wasn't from lack of heart or courage. He'd always been a little slow on the take, as mom said. But he wasn't completely stupid. He was smart enough that he'd seen this coming. But he'd tried so hard. "It's...all right. I knew it was gonna happen sooner or later. Could I...finish up the shift Sir?"

Moor looked relieved and sad and he nodded at this reasonable request. "Yeah. Sure. Finish up the shift. You're a good guy. You work hard. I know you'll find something else."

Sam nodded and walked off. As if he wasn't going to be leaving, he went about his business of doing his chores. He grabbed the broom and went outside to sweep the parking lot. When he was about half done, the chief showed up, but not for a formal inspection. He drew Captain Moor into a conversation, and somehow Sam found himself listening without meaning to. The aging Chief was going to be retiring in a few more weeks, and wanted to settle his administrator back into a regular position, and not because he owed a certain Chief a big favor. "People just don't understand Carl. He's a good boy once you get to know him. He gets things done and he's willing to work hard. I think he just needs a friend. I was thinking if a position ever opened up here, that he'd work nicely at this station."

Sam turned his head as he heard this and noticed Carl was not just accidentally listening in like he was. Carl was deliberately eavesdropping, hiding on the other side of one of the cars. And he was closer to the Chief and the Captain and could certainly hear it. Sam went about his business, sweeping bits of gravel up and pretending he hadn't seen Carl eavesdropping, or heard any part of the conversation at all.

A short time later, after the Chief had gone off with Carl, Sam was still out cleaning the parking lot. It just seemed like the right thing to do-clean. Or maybe he wanted to hide. Maybe he could make up for his slow mind if he worked hard.

"Kid?" Moor called.

Sam walked over to him, broom in hand. "Yes sir?"

"I was thinking. Maybe I could give you another shot at this."

"Sir?" He felt confused.

"If you can practice and get better and keep trying, I figure you could do this job. I wanna give you another chance. How about we start doing some drills with you every day? Would you be willing?"

"Yes sir! I am! I'll work hard sir!" Sam was so glad for the chance to try again, that he didn't care what the Captain's reason was for keeping him.

.

~)51(~

"Ever since that day, Cap's been working drills with me to help me get better. I know the reason he gave me another chance is because he didn't want Carl." Sam paused for air. "I'm not telling you this cause for my own sake sir. But for Chet's."

Hank's mouth was twisted into a hard knot of fury, and Sam barely looked at him.

"I-I'm sorry sir, if I shouldn't be saying this. But I...figured you might need to know this." Sam paused to meet Hank's eyes across the desk. "But...I-I really don't want Captain Moor to know that I know the real reason that he changed his mind about firing me that day."

Hank exhaled sharply. He wanted to give Sam some reassurance and tell him he'd gotten the wrong idea. But the kid rushed out of the office before he could think of what to say to him. The door was left swinging open in the young man's wake. Hank got up to look after him a moment, wishing he could call him back, but he ran off so fast he didn't know where he'd gone. And then it dawned on him what the kid had just told him-Carl had very likely set Chet up for the sake of getting him fired!

Carl was trying to take Chet's job!

"That son of a bitch!" He blew out a breath of frustration and planted his fists on his hips.

MORE TO COME...


	23. Chapter 23

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* * *

JOKESTER

.

~)51(~

Carl was angry to say the least. With the Chief in the front seat of the car with him, he drove toward station 51. "I really was hoping simply to get things done yesterday, sir. In light of all the paperwork to be done for the hillside fire, I was running behind schedule, and I was doing some extra hours to get it done. If I overstepped my bounds, I really didn't mean anything by it. Had he simply told me he needed more time with his paper work, I'd have been more than happy to go along with it. But with the way he reacted last night." He exhaled, and then inhaled deeply. "Well, I just have to say it was way over the top. He lit into me as if I'd set the station on fire. I wouldn't be telling you this, sir, but I imagine the other men who have to work under him, might not want to report that kind of sudden display of temper. I think maybe he should have a talk with the department psychologist."

Brennings said nothing as Carl pulled the car into station 51's lot. The shift change was taking place and the lot was packed. Carl parked in the last available space and the two went into the station through the open rear bay door to greet the chaos of the changing shift. Men were running back and forth between the rec room and the locker room. There was a big pile of blankets and sheets and used uniforms on the floor and a rookie was trying to haul the mess to the end of the bay. The steam from hot water was pouring out of the open door of the locker room. One of B-shift's men was spouting sonnets in the dorm, while another man helping him to make beds was laughing raucously. "Oh come on you guys! Save me some hot water!" Someone complained as several helmets clattered off a shelf at his feet. "Uh...sorry, Chief!" Brennings ignored the mess, knowing the shift change would sort itself out in a matter of another half hour. He wasn't here to inspect anything after all, but the rookie saw him and stiffened up and suddenly became frantic to drag off the laundry, but only managed to fall over himself into the pile. "At ease, Rookie." Brennings headed for the rec room, and grinned at three of the A-shift crew who were still technically on duty for another twenty-five minutes.

"Good morning, sir!" Stoker said as he looked back from the sink full of dishes he was washing.

"Morning, fellahs. Where's Captain Stanley?"

"Uh...I could go get him for you, sir. I think he's in his office." Desoto offered.

"That's all right...uh, Roy is it? I'll go talk to him in the office."

"You two want some coffee, Chief?" Mike offered. "It's fresh! I...not sure who made it, but it was still perking a minute ago."

"Sure, don't mind if I do! Hey, it's too bad about Gage getting a prank like that. Snake in the shower. Carl here told me what happened, that Chet threw it at him and all..."

"Did he?" Desoto asked with a fake grin and a tone in his voice that Brennings couldn't quite figure out. Or so he thought. When he looked back, he wasn't sure he'd seen any odd look at all. "Let me fix your coffee for you both. Carl, you like double cream and three spoons of sugar."

"Yes, that's right. Thank you Mr. Desoto."

Roy handed him a cup.

"How do you like yours, Chief?"

"Just a little cream." Once Brennings had his, he sipped and didn't show off the fact that it was really awful. He just held it and would wait for the right moment to dump it out. "How's your partner doing?"

"He's doing all right. He's actually over to Chet's house right now."

"After what Kelly pulled on him?" Brennings asked, surprised. "Gage went to his house?"

"Yeah, well. Chet's been looking after Johnny since yesterday. He's even taking him to the doctor today."

"Ah, see that, Carl. I told you it was probably not as serious as you made it out to be!"

"Still a very serious breach of misconduct, sir." Carl sniveled.

Brennings hadn't seen it, but he knew that Carl had shot a nasty look at Desoto. There wasn't much he could do about it though, and he had to wonder if maybe the guys were picking at Phillips like he said they did. Cup in hand, he headed toward the bay. "I'm gonna go find Hank. You fellahs relax, I will never pull inspections before nine. You can count on that."

There came a chorus of grateful, "yessirs" that made him grin. But that grin failed as soon as he realized Carl was following him. He raised a brow in his general direction. But he just wasn't going to take a hint, so he had to say outright. "I'd like to have a word with Hank alone, Carl."

"Uh...yessir." He cleared his throat, looking a bit stricken as he returned to the rec room.

Brennings continued to the office and found Hank just as he'd expected-hunched over paper work. "Ah, there ya are, Kid!" He ignored the embarrassed grimace and turned his attention to the other man in the room, who reminded him of a salty haired sea captain, right down to the craggy tan. "You must be Captain Arthur Moor!" He put his hand out and smiled. Just as he'd hoped, his friendly manner pushed the B-shift Captain's nervous trepidations away, and the smile and the hand shake that were returned to him were as relaxed and genuine as he'd hoped. "Good to meet you Captain! I've heard good things about you."

"Glad to hear that, Chief. Will you be doing our inspection later today?" Moor's eyes were filled with just a speck of trepidation, and Brennings knew the poor guy was worried about a pop morning inspection.

"Oh, I should be here around two o'clock for the uh..." he paused to wink, "formal introduction. But, for the time being, it'd be nice if I could buy in for breakfast and get to know everyone."

"Sure! We'll set an extra plate for you!" Moor's smile was genuine and he was reading the body language and the facial expressions easily, realizing without being told that the two old friends wanted to have a talk. Moor gave Hank's shoulder a slap, and he picked up some papers and trotted out of the office. Brennings shut the door, and settled in the chair. "All right, Kid. Carl told me about you tearing a report to shreds and chewing on him like you did. By all rights, I should sick the department shrink on you. But, I figured..."

"Billy?" Hank interrupted. "We need to talk. Off the record."

"Wha...?" Something about his manner was just a little bit shocking. "Look, kid..."

"Billy, would you please, stop calling me kid! Especially in front of my men!"

Brennings was just too shocked to speak. And so, he listened.

.

~)51(~

Carl sat at the table, nervous, wondering what was going on in the Captain's office. He tried to focus on the paper work that didn't really need any attention. He just wanted something to make him look busy and give him an excuse to not have to make any attempts to be social. Every time he looked up, he got a glance at a rather angry A-shift person. But he knew it was because they were mad at him for telling the Chief about their Captain's misbehavior. It wasn't his fault that he had to pass on a message for their own good.

"Still ten more minutes!" Marko groaned as he watched the clock helplessly from a seat at the other side of the table.

"What be thy hurry, O man of the Line of thy shift of lofty tides?" Came a teasing from the theatrical Spike. He tasted his coffee and made a horrible face at it. "Which one of you idiots put engine grease in the coffee?"

Carl felt a gurgling in his stomach and made a face, hoping it was just gas and not what he thought it was.

"I think Cap did."

"Our Cap or your Cap?" Mike wondered. He handed the last plate he'd just dried to Sam, who put it away.

"Wasn't me!" Captain Moor denied from the sofa. "And Hank's coffee ain't as bad as that stuff."

"That's a third pot that got made this morning. I just know Cap made the first one. I made the one before this one." Marko said.

"Maybe it's leftover from both of the others and just put back and brewed more."

"I dunno. This is more like brewed car exhaust dust than burnt leftover coffee."

"Must be really bad if you can't even think of some fancy theatrical line for it." Roy said pointedly to Spike.

All the men in the room broke into laughter. But Carl was making faces. His belly was gurgling, and he felt a lot of bloating. A drop of sweat ran down his spine. 'oh no!' He strained to hold back the mounting pressure. If he got up, he was afraid he'd burst! But if he didn't get up, there was going to be an embarrassing mess on the chair! He strained to hang on, and hope the pressure would ease up for long enough to get across the bay...and then hope the toilet was not occupied.

"What are you guys gonna do with yer days off?" Moor asked.

"Sleep!" Marko announced.

Mike finished the last of the dishes. "Don't know, but hopefully it won't involve doing any dishes."

"I'm sure my wife's got it all planned for me." Roy smiled.

Carl strained desperately to not suddenly burst all over the chair. A droplet of sweat poured down one side of his face. The pressure finally eased and there was a gurgling inside of him so loud, he was sure the other guys had to be hearing it. But no one seemed to take notice.

He got up and ran for the toilet, praying it was not occupied. There was an exclamation in his wake, but he ignored it, as he dashed across the bay, and (thank goodness!) there was no one using the toilet. He ran inside, shut the door, dropped his pants and just in time he landed on the seat. "ooooooOOOooh...thank goodness!" He whispered to himself over the racket he was making. He simply just relaxed for a minute longer than necessary, giving thanks to the powers that be for letting him get to the pot in time. Then, he reached for the toilet paper.

But a tube of glue fell off the top of the roll and landed almost perfectly in his hand. With a scowl, he looked at it. "Oh no..." His jaw dropped and he swallowed a lump, and tried to get up. "Oh no!"

Someone had put glue on the seat, and he was stuck to it now.

.

~)51(~

"Oh come on, kid!" Brennings cleared his throat at the look he got. "Sorry. Hank." He corrected himself. "You're saying, that someone's been getting in here, hiding in a locker, watching what goes on so they can set up pranks?"

"Yep." Hank leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head.

Brennings blew out a long breath of frustration.

"I know it's hard to believe. But, I saw all those things in that locker with my own eyes. That locker has been stuck like that for weeks." He leaned forward and shivered. "Billy, this goes way beyond fun and games and harmless pranks. Something is really wrong with finding out that someone's been watching us like that." He shivered again, and Brennings noted the tension in his friend's shoulders and the hunch of his back. Hank was really bothered by the fact that someone had been watching him and his men.

"You have any idea who this is?"

Hank's eyes dimmed a bit and he seemed to fight with himself about what to say to the question. In that moment, he seemed like the fresh faced insecure rookie of years ago.

"Come on Kid. I know you know who's doing this. Just tell me, and I'll fix 'em."

Hank's mouth opened and he shook his head. "I can't. I can't tell you Billy." He sighed. "On or off the record, it won't make things any better. Especially for Chet Kelly!"

"Okay, come on kid. Spit it out. You know keeping stuff to yourself doesn't help matters, especially in a case like..." A sudden hollering from somewhere cut him off in mid-word. "What's going on?" He looked back at Hank to see what he was going to do, but swore he spotted a tiny hint of smug satisfaction on his face. But the instant came and went to quickly for him to be sure.

"Let's go see," Hank directed and got to his feet and opened the door.

They two heard the wailing again, and Brennings recognized the whiny voice instantly-Carl Philips. Once out in the bay, they were greeted by chaos. Carl was yelling his head off on the other side of the station. Men were dashing back and forth across the bay laughing. One of them was laughing so hard, he was bent over holding his mid-section.

"You get me off this thing!" Carl howled angrily from the locker room! "I don't know which one of you did this! Stop laughing! This is NOT funny!"

"Oh my lord!" Brennings had a pretty good idea of what he was going to see before he went into the locker room and peered into the toilet cubicle. There was Carl on the toilet, leaning forward to cover his dignity with his shirttails, but his ridiculously bony white, legs were on display, pants down around his ankles. His face was twisted up into an expression of sheer humiliated desperation and shock. "Phillips!" He tried to be stern but failed. "What the hell is going on?"

"CHIEF SOMEONE GLUED ME TO THE TOILET!" He more or less wailed this. "Make them get me off of here!"

And Brennings couldn't help himself. The laughter just came of its own accord. He walked out of the bathroom laughing helplessly, knees weak.

"GET ME OFF THIS THING!" Carl wailed and then sobbed, and men were laughing so hard, they could barely breathe. "Chief Brennings! Make them stop laughing!" Carl cried out loud.

Brennings himself laughed so hard that tears were rolling down his cheeks and he slid down a wall clutching at his mid-section, cackling helplessly.

.

~)51(~

A short time later, a still very anxious and angry Carl was laying face down on a stretcher, an emergency blanket covered him, but the shape of the toilet seat stuck to his backside was obvious beneath the blanket. He was loaded into an ambulance by a pair of very stoic white clad attendants while the ten firemen and Chief Brennings looked on. The doors of the vehicle were slammed shut and the driver, wearing a very tight smirk, got behind the wheel and drove away.

Brennings looked back at the ten men. It looked like some random culprit, the same one who'd thrown the snake at John Gage, had glued Carl to the toilet. Brennings knew better though. Maybe someone else had pulled off all those other pranks, but he was dead certain that he knew who was responsible for Carl's seating problem. He took a few steps toward Hank, so he was nearly toe-to-toe with him and glared. But the look he got in return was of sheer innocence-a very well practiced expression that he recognized well from years ago.

Brennings was about to growl out that he knew it'd been him, but the other men crowded around Hank in a protective huddle. Hank certainly had their loyalty, he realized, not just from his own men, but from the men of B-shift as well. They were all displaying the posture that showed they were ready at any moment to take the blame upon themselves. There was no point then in any sort of a reprimand either formal, or informal. No matter how certain he was that Hank had glued Carl to the toilet, there was no way he could ever prove it. He also knew that Carl very likely deserved what he got.

He took a breath to speak, but then stopped himself, realizing he was about to call him 'kid.' He reminded himself, that Hank had not stumbled on his rank by accident. He was not an introverted twenty-something rookie anymore with a bad case of insecurity, and a tendency to slouch. He'd gotten over his hang-ups, worked hard, earned his rank, and he'd also earned the respect and friendship of his men. He had no business at all calling him 'kid.'

Brennings backed up a step. "Captain Stanley."

Hank cleared his throat, brows rose in surprise. "Yes sir?"

"I trust you and Captain Moor will sort this out and decide who should buy a new toilet seat." With that, he raised his brows and looked toward the kitchen, tempted by a delicious smell of cooking food. "Now, what's for breakfast?" He headed for the rec-room and ignored the murmurings he left behind himself.

.

~)51(~

A treatment room door of Rampart hospital opened and out stepped Johnny with Chet and Doctor Bracket just behind him. The doc said something that made Johnny nod his appreciation before he hurried down the hall to tend another patient. Nakee was at the nurse's station refilling supplies when she spotted Johnny and Chet walking toward her. When they got to the desk, she grinned at Johnny. "So, what's the verdict?"

"I'm fine." He rubbed the back of his head. "Doc says you were right, it's just a rash from soap."

"Well that's good. Now that we know it's nothing serious, you can go back to sleep anywhere you want."

Johnny was about to say he had other plans, but spotted something that made his eyes and mouth open wide with shock. Nakee and Chet were cued by his shock, and also turned to look.

Carl Phillips was wheeled past them on a gurney, belly down. The shape of a toilet seat was clear under the emergency blanket over his back end. Carl spotted Johnny and Chet as the gurney was turned and he was wheeled feet first into a treatment room. He lifted himself up on his arms to yell at him, and his face darkened as he shouted for all to hear. "I know this is your fault!" He pointed at the two firefighters. "I know you put them up to it! So help me! I'll get you all back when you least expect it!"

Dixie pushed the gurney from behind and shot a brows-up look at the trio as she shut the door. Her tight little grin said it all-she was trying like hell to not fall over laughing.

Chet, Johnny, and Nakee exchanged looks with each other and then burst out laughing so that patients and staff all stared at them as they wandered by. The more people shot them curious looks, the more they laughed.

A little teeny bit more to come...


	24. Chapter 24

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* * *

**JOKESTER**

A pair of matronly waitresses set down two huge trays of breakfast foods on a picnic table for the four out-of-uniform men planted on the benches. "That's a lot of food, even for four big fellahs like you!"

"It is, isn't it?" He looked hungrily at the platter of potato wedges, and smiled back. "We got two more on the way Lizzy." Hank grinned at the lady, appreciative of her kind nature.

"Okay, Hank. I think I know who you mean. If I see them, I'll let them know where you are."

"Appreciate it Liz," he smiled as she walked away to look after another picnic table that seemed to be surrounded by a bunch from Rampart.

Roy, Mike and Marko all reached for food and began to eat. A few minutes later, along came Chet and Johnny at last and joined them at the table. There were some apologetic looks aimed toward Chet as he was greeted, and questions of concern for Johnny as he used Roy as a hand hold to climb over the bench and sit down.

And Hank raised his brows in one of those, "You're late" expressions.

Chet and Johnny just immediatly started to laugh though. The rest of them were still in too much of a giggly mood to resist the contagious laughter. For a while the rest of the people at the outdoor tables stared curiously, while the group tried to force themselves to calm down. Hank put an end to it with a wave of one arm. "All right, okay! Obviously you two heard what happened to Carl at the station."

Johnny made a herculean effort to contain a new wave of laughter, and breathed a long sigh. "Actually we saw him getting wheeled into the ER."

Chet was just in too much of a state of near-laughter and didn't trust himself to speak.

"That was the toilet seat from the station, wasn't it?" Johnny asked looking around at the guys. Everyone nodded and there were a few more chuckles escaping from Mike. Johnny looked at Hank, who looked back at him innocently. He wanted so badly to outright tell him thank you, but knew he never could do that. He could never acknowledge that he knew his Captain had been responsible of gluing Carl to a toilet seat. Silently, he piled potato wedges and scrambled eggs on a plate and began to eat.

Seeing his junior medic was going to keep his mouth tactfully shut, Hank looked to Chet. "You get that paper, there pal?"

"Oh...yeah!" Chet pulled a folded paper out of his shirt pocket and handed it over to his Captain. Hank unfolded it and read what it said for a minute. As he lifted his head, he noticed a few curious expressions around the table. "Didn't you guys know Chet here left work yesterday because he got sick?"

"Oh, right, that's why he didn't want to eat lunch!" Marko winked and Mike nodded.

"But what'd you end up sick with?" Roy wondered.

Johnny chuckled. "Lightheadedness and nauseau due to inhaling the fumes from super fast acting glue."

"I wonder what Carl's gonna think when he files that report." Hank mused.

A round of laughter went around the table and ended with all of them sipping coffee and making faces of disgust at it.

"Hey, Johnny, you owe your sister a chair, right?" Marko asked.

"Yeah. Actually." He looked around at the guys hopefully. "I forgot about that."

"I gotta pick up some things from the Used Barn for my mom, so I can give you a hand with the chair."

"You'll need a truck to get a chair home!" Mike offered.

"Didn't she say it's a lazy-boy?"

Hank looked to Johnny. "Those are pretty heavy. You might need more than two people to help carry that."

Roy lifted his brows and grinned, "I wanna see what she did to yer apartment."

"You're going too, Chet!" Marko ordered. "I wanna keep my eye on you."

"Me?" Chet looked innocent. "Need watching? I'm innocent!"

"Uh-huh!" Johnny twisted the cap back on the salt shaker before he used it on his eggs. "Right!"

"I can't be held responsible for what the phantom does." Chet's eyes sparkled gleefully.

**THE END!**

* * *

Thank you to everyone who left your comments! I enjoyed reading them and looked oh so forward to finding them. I really hope that everyone enjoyed this story. Jokester was a lot of fun for me. I like to be able to write stories that have a silly side to them.

NOTE: I know there are some points that seem to be unfinished. I intend to continue the story in another episode or two or three.

How many I write will depend on how much time I have. Must warn you. Work is about ready to hit the busy season and from what I understand, I may end up working 6 days a week 12 hours a day until Christmas. So I probably won't get to write until January.

But I can leave a morsel for you.

There next one is about a spoiled college aged son of a fancy lawyer who Nearly gets hit by the squad while en route to a rescue. Roy has to stop so suddenly that Johnny gets pitched into the dashboard.

The father sees dollar signs and decides to be a worm and see how much money he could get out of the fire department-but has no clue that he'd be destroying Roy's career. In the meantime, Johnny loses his wolf pendant/charm necklace and all these other people get it and each person who picks it up has something really mysterious happen to them. In one part, Hank ends up with the charm, and somehow gets chased down the road by a seemingly rabid wild dog/wolf.


End file.
